Six Sigma - Statistical Tools - Valid or Hype? Value? Can a CQE do the same?

[Randy Stewart]

B3 Quality

Quality inspectors are alive and kicking at Ford

I agree Wallace and it's not just because they are our parent company. My feeling is that a majority of the issues are due to supplier problems and labor (union) regulations. We noticed a big bottleneck in one of the door assembly processes and began investigating the "root cause". When establishing the cycle time it was stopped because union rules will not allow us to time the person only the machine. The robots had already been baselined during initial set up and dry run so the only cause of the bottleneck had to come from something not introduced during the dry run. I ended up using a few managers and a couple other engineers to evaluate what was happening. We did show it was a personnel issue, and for our trouble we had a union grievance put in on us and were not allowed to put in all the necessary/desired changes.

 

[db]

It might not matter

I worked with a final assembly plant several years ago. The work was dual focused. First, they wanted to improve quality (at the time 1/3 of vehicles coming off the line went to "rework". Secondly, they wanted to add some lean manufacturing initiatives to the plant. Every time we attempted to institute a change, it was met with great resistance. After several weeks on frustration, we cornered the plant manager (literally) and demanded an explanation. The explanation was that this plant was graded solely on the number of VINs scanned in at the end of the line. HQ didn’t care if they ran or not, if they had wheels or not, only the amount. I suggested that if it didn’t matter whether they were “quality” builds, then why don’t they just scan in the entire production schedule for the year and be done. As it was 1/3 of the vehicles were not saleable, so what is the difference. (I tend to say things like that) I was promptly removed from the project.

Now, I will admit this was before the days of sick stigma, but I will be willing to bet the metrics for assembly plants have not changed a great deal. Perhaps plant managers now have sick stigma requirements, but the end result is still probably just number of VINs scanned.

 

[WALLACE]

Those darn VIN's again.

db,
You speak more that a grain of truth when you speak of the VIN's. Your past situation may just be the same at my location.
Randy,
You make an excellent point when you say that the UNION grieves a point and you are blocked from implementing the necessary CI changes I would be mad if this happened although, I'm sure you agree that the union is a necessary evil in the auto industry, I'm sure I commented on this situation in a previous thread.
Wallace.

 

[Al Dyer]

Just a thought,

I have been promoted a few times and none of those promotions came from me being a member of a union.

I fact the two jobs I lost early in my career development were union jobs. One with the UAW and one with the Teamsters. Neither one offered me more than a handshake and good luck when the plants closed down.

Don't people realize that the federal government has taken over about 80% of former union duties.

I remeember my first real job where they had the UAW. The leadership told management they were going to strike if we did not receive an immediate raise. We won!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We all got a 10% increase and a pink slip 4 months later.

Unions have had their place and been succesful, but government has taken uo alot of that slack. These days you have to wonder why your union payment is like a credit card payment. You don't even have a choice if it is taken out of your gross. Maybe the unions feel thet the dues will not be paid if it is voluntary.

Yea Yea Yea, Soap box again!!!1

 

[Michael T]

Not Trying to Union Bash, but....

Al Dyer said:

Just a thought,

*snip*
Don't people realize that the federal government has taken over about 80% of former union duties.
*snip
Unions have had their place and been succesful, but government has taken uo alot of that slack. These days you have to wonder why your union payment is like a credit card payment. You don't even have a choice if it is taken out of your gross. Maybe the unions feel thet the dues will not be paid if it is voluntary.

Yea Yea Yea, Soap box again!!!1

Hi Al,

You have a very valid point. What really is amazing, and I don't know how many people know this or not, but Section 8(a)(2) of the National Labor Relations Act makes it illegal to have a safety committee, a quality committee, quality of life committee, etc. Anything that infringes upon what appears to be a "union activity" is deemed illegal. Talk about a crock!

Just a little food for thought.

Cheers!!!

 

[WALLACE]

Training and WPS change?

Randy wrote.

We did show it was a personnel issue, and for our trouble we had a union grievance put in on us and were not allowed to put in all the necessary/desired changes.

Randy,
You might want to consider rewritting the Work Proces Sheet (WPS) that the operator should follow, this sheet of work procedures are the best defence when dealing with an operator problem regarding work processes, of course more Training may be the additional key to resolving implementing changes that would allow the outputs of the task to be measured as effective and efficient. The union will usually jump on those two issues.
Wallace.

 

[tarheel]

Quality Fads

Having worked in the auto industry for 13 years, if you have a car that doesn't get a recall, you are lucky. Very little of substance has changed regarding quality, unless you can figure out how copying a FMEA over and over again to satisfy some Ford engineer is supposed to improve quality. Not once in my many new product launches were we given the time necessary to actually do they things they demanded. The sad part is that the quality powers that be continue to make things worse by trumpeting the latest fad. Any good quality engineers that were given even a part of the resources some companies dedicate to Six Sigma could solve most problems. We need to stage a revolution to take quality back. :thedeal: All the tools in TQM and Six Sigma can be helpful if we don't go overboard. I saw one article where the author claimed there was no problem Six Sigma couldn't fix. Hyperbole like that is just stupid, and makes us all look like idiots.

Make a bet every day, you may be walking around lucky and not know it

 

[Andrei Viorel - 2009]

6 sigma & KAIZEN umbrella

I’m new one but interested in this subject, so please accept my contribution:

Six Sigma has its successes. It seems to be a management technique with associated tools. With management commitment it has succeeded. But the others managerial techniques succeeded too.

Last week I had the visit of one expert of KAIZEN institute of France in my location, and I was surprised to see under UMBRELA: 6 sigma. For me that is the CONTINOUS ADAPTING even for the KAIZEN philosophy.

The reason can be very simple: MOTOROLA, GENERAL ELECTRIC,…, got a lot of money, based on this “concept”. Or, money is a global language with a global understanding. And this is very important mainly for our days.

This is new? like 6 sigma?

Of coarse not. But, I think that we have to consider 6 sigma, as I found my self.

I saw papers showing that 6 sigma it is more large than KAIZEN and ISO.
I saw that 6 sigma it is now under KAIZEN umbrella.
ISO 9000 –2000 seems to be very close to KAIZEN…..

vio

 

[D.Scott]

Andrei

Welcome to the Cove.

Your contributions are not only welcomed but they are encouraged.

Your observation here is very good. Isn't it strange that no matter how much things change they always seem to remain the same?

Again - Welcome.

Dave

 

[Andrei Viorel - 2009]

Modern Management Methods & Six Sigma

Dear Dave,

Thanks for reply. Yes, you are right. "A phenomenon will be said to be controlled when, through the use of past experience, we can predict, at least within limits, how the phenomenon will vary in the future" said Shewhart long time ago. We can recognize that we are doing lots for that.

Therefore, in order to better win the hearts and minds of others and to encourage them to enjoy the benefits of Shewhart's creation, Dr. Donald J. Wheeler propose to use a new terminology. For example, instead of Statistical Process Control, to speak about Continual Improvement. And this is more convenient as original explanation of Shewhart. And this is still valid in our day.
How? Depend on the management philosophy.

There's an elusive balance between chasing after each new management tool or method, and ignoring the fact that we have actually learned some things about management over the past 100,000 years. The best tools are those which stand the test of time, and which give you a lot of leverage over common problems, from [The Web's Management Library Modern Management Methods: http://www.skymark.com/resources/methods/methods_main.asp]

vio