Oscar Celi

May 1, 2016
IE673 eLearning
1. Explain why continual quality improvement is important.
One of the most fundamental elements of total quality is continual
improvement. The rationale for continual improvement is that it is necessary
in order to compete in the global marketplace. Just maintaining the status
quo, even if the status quo is high quality, is like standing still in a race. The
only way a company can hope to compete in the modern marketplace is to
improve continually.
2. What is managements role in continual quality improvement?
Managements role in continual improvement is leadership. Executive-level
managers must be involved personally and extensively. The responsibility for
continual improvement cannot be delegated.
Establishing an organization-wide quality council and serving on it.
Working with the quality council to establish specific quality
improvement goals with timetables and target dates.
Providing the necessary moral and physical support.
Moral support manifests itself as commitment. Physical support comes
in the form of the resources needed to accomplish the quality
improvement objectives.
Scheduling periodic progress reviews and giving recognition where it is
deserved.
Building continual quality improvement into the regular reward system,
including promotions and pay increases.
3. Discuss the Kaizen approach.
Kaizen is the name given by the Japanese to the concept of continual
incremental improvement. Kai means change and zen means good. It
means making changes for the better on a continual, never-ending basis. It is
a broad concept that encompasses all of the many strategies for achieving
continual improvement and entails the following five elements: straighten
up, put things in order, clean up, standardize, and discipline. Two important
Kaizen tools are Five Ws and One H, and the Five M Checklist.

Kaizen can be summarized as continual improvement of all things, at all

levels, all the time, forever. All of the strategies for achieving fall here in the
elements of Kaizen.

The Five Ws and One H are not just Kaizen tools. They are widely used as
management tools in a variety of set- tings. The Five Ws and One H, are
Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How. Using them encourages employees
to look at a process and ask such questions as the following:

Who is doing it? Who should be doing it?

What is being done? What should be done?

Where is it being done? Where should it be done?

When is it being done? When should it be done?

Why is it being done? Why do it that way?

How is it being done? How should it be done?

The Five-M checklist is a tool that focuses attention on five key factors
involved in any process. The Five Ms are man (operator), machine, material,
methods, and measurement. In any process, improvements can be made by
examining these aspects of the process.
4. How would you describe a lean system?
Lean is a TQM approach originally designed for manufacturing, but since
adapted to any kind of organization. It is intended for smoother, more
flexible process flow, reducing waste, and improving the organizations
competitive posture. Lean focuses on reducing and ideally eliminating for the
following type of waste.
Overproduction waste
Inventory waste
Motion waste
Transportation waste
Over processing waste
Defects waste
Waiting waste
Underutilization waste
Compared to a non-Lean company, the Lean organization does more and
does it better, while using less. At the heart of the concept are the reduction

of waste and the improvement of workflow. The purpose of adopting Lean as

a business improvement method is to produce better products or deliver
better services using fewer resources.
5. What is lean six-sigma and how would you apply it to a quality
management system?
Six Sigma is a statistically based approach that targets the defects rate at
3.4 per million or less, thereby making the company more competitive,
profitable, and successful. Originally designed for use in high-volume
production settings, it has nonetheless been found equally suited to service
organizations, including the military, hospitality industry, supermarkets, and
so on. Some of the benefits include:
Cost reduction
Productivity improvement
Market-share growth
Customer retention
Cycle-time reduction
Culture change
Product/service development
The objective of Lean Six Sigma is to make the organization superior in its
day-to-day work and processes, its products and services, and its business
results. This has also been the objective of many organizations that have
found that Lean alone, or Six Sigma by itself, did not quite provide all the
results needed in their quest for a better competitive posture. A lot of those
organizations have found that by combining Lean with Six Sigma, significant
performance gains relative to processes, products, services, employees,
customer satisfaction, and the business bottom line have been realized.
Advantages of Lean Six Sigma include:
Elimination of the Eight Wasteswaiting, overproduction, rework,
motion, transportation, processing, inventory, and intellect
Means of improving process flow whether on the manufacturing floor,
in an office, or any other setting
A structured means for identifying the key factors that determine the
performance of all kinds of processes
Ordered methods for establishing key factors at the best possible level
Disciplined means of sustaining key factors at the best level
Synergistic advantage of linking the Lean tools with the Six Sigma tools
in a systematic way and in a specified sequence
Tying all of these to the financial health of the organization

Six Sigma is an extension of total quality management, which has the aim of
taking process and product quality to levels where all customer requirements
are met. Six Sigma is a total quality strategy for achieving what all the other
total quality strategies attempt to achieve: superior performance that is
improved continually.
6. Define Benchmarking.
Benchmarking is the process of comparing and measuring an organizations
operations or its internal processes against those of a best-in-class performer
from inside or outside its industry. Benchmarking is a process for comparing
an organizations operations or processes with those of a best-in class
performer. The objective of benchmarking is major performance
improvement achieved quickly. It focuses on processes and practices, not
products.
7. How can you apply benchmarking data?
The benchmarking process is relatively straightforward, but steps must flow
in a sequence.

Obtain management commitment

Baseline your own processes
Identify your strong and weak processes and document them
Select processes to be benchmarked
Form benchmarking teams
Research the best-in-class
Select candidate best-in-class benchmarking partners
Form agreements with benchmarking partners
Collect data
Analyze data and establish the gap
Plan action to close the gap or surpass
Implement change to the process
Monitor results
Update benchmarks: continue the cycle

The goal of benchmarking is to become best-in-class, not simply improved.

Benchmarking data analysis produces both quantitative and qualitative
information. The quantitative information is effectively the stake driven into
the ground as the point from which future progress is measured. It is also
used as the basis for improvement objectives. Qualitative information covers
such matters as personnel policies, training, management styles and
hierarchy, total quality maturity, and so on. This information provides
insights on how the benchmarking partner got to be best in-class. The

quantitative data are clearly the information sought and are always used.
However, there may be more value in the qualitative information. It
describes the atmosphere and environment in which best-in-class can be
developed and sustained. Do not ignore it. Take it very seriously. Study it,
discuss it in staff meetings, and explore the possibilities of introducing these
changes into your culture.
8. What is a JIT system?
JIT is a management philosophy that seeks to eliminate all forms of waste. As
a production system, JIT produces only what is needed, when it is needed, in
the quantity needed. Taiichi Ohno is credited with the development of the
Toyota Production System and JIT/Lean. JIT/Lean began as a means of
reducing the seven wastes which are:

Waste
Waste
Waste
Waste
Waste
Waste
Waste

arising
arising
arising
arising
arising
arising
arising

from
from
from
from
from
from
from

overproducing
waiting (time)
transport
processing itself
unnecessary stock on hand
unnecessary motion
producing defective goods.

Just-in time/Lean approaches the manufacturing process from the opposite

end of the line. Rather than pushing materials into the processes and storing
them whenever they cannot be accommodated, JIT/Lean controls the line
from the output end.
9. What are the benefits of JIT/Lean?
There are many benefits of JIT/Lean. There are four main benefits that are
covered under JIT/Lean. The first is the benefit to inventory and WIP. Having a
goal of zero inventory, while impractical, drives the process to have
significantly less inventory, thus reducing work in process. Having a
streamlined process using JIT/Lean materials should come in, be
manufactured and sent to the consumer, not sitting in receiving, semifinished, or shipping inventories. There should also be a significant benefit to
cycle time. By reducing work in process this will reduce cycle time. It is often
seen that longest hold up of processes is actually the space between the
processes, which is usually filled with inventory or WIP. This greatly and
negatively affects cycle time. JIT should benefit a company's goals to
continual improvement, by being a visual process it should be easier to
notice errors, or lacking areas, and improve them. Lastly JIT/Lean should
benefit in organization by eliminating waste from overproduction, waiting
time, transport, process, unnecessary stock, unnecessary motion, and
producing defective goods.

10. Discuss automation system ideas for JIT/Lean.

JIT/Lean and automation are mutually exclusive. It is more meaningful to
discuss the processes that use humans and manual machines, rather than
the same processes powered by robots. The same fundamentals used by
humans will be useful for an automated plant. JIT/Lean and automation are
compatible, but one should look long and hard at the need and the
companys readiness for it, before automating processes. Automation clearly
has its place in harmony with JIT/Lean. There are many examples of very
successful automated plants, especially for high-volume manufacturing.
Probably the best example of that is in todays auto industry. JIT/Lean was
originally designed for an auto producer, and as automation has been
integrated, and as automation capabilities have evolved, JIT/Lean has been
there doing its job. In these plants, JIT/Lean is at least as valuable as it is in
plants with less automation. Its pull system prevents overproduction of any
manufacturing element, and supplies materials at the front end of the
process when needed, and does it without the massive inventories of the
pre-JIT/Lean era. Whether the processes are operated by humans or robots
makes no difference in this regard. JIT/Lean is successfully employed around
the world in situations where automation is nonexistent and equally
successful in the most highly automated plants on the planet.