Have you ever gone for paddle with your friends? It’s really exciting to paddle a canoe and floating on the water. I have actually experienced it and I can tell you that it was incredibly enjoyable. However, the journey contains some risks. Therefore you have to be prepared for it. There are some requirements that you need to procure in land and before you get in the canoe. First of all, it’s essential that you plan and schedule your journey. Secondly, you have to prepare your scope such as food, life jacket, sleeping bag, light, drink water and other useful tools that you maybe need during your trip and of course your paddles.
In addition to the above mentioned preparation, you must identify on the map the direction, time required to reach the goals and break stations before you start the journey. Sometimes it is beneficial that you take a break and reward yourselves because you have done a good job, by taking a cup of coffee or eating something, on the other hand you can use the time within reviewing and controlling the direction, obstacles, short cut, tools and the whole canoe or making some calculations regarding the distance.
In order to keep the canoe floating on the water, enjoying the journey and reaching the target(s) one should be equipped with some skills and strategy. For example, as a paddling’s team you have to consider the speed of the paddling and the balance of the canoe, thus you have to cooperate with each other to divide working load into halves. Furthermore, you have also to communicate continuously with each other when paddling to keep the boat floating on the right direction and not overturning into the water until you accomplish your goals.
I will not drift away from the main issue, since I think the above example exhibits clearly the purpose of the content. As well, if we imagine the similarity between the canoe, paddling’s team, and company/plant and its departments then we can easily understand the correlation.
Moreover, each department must have a clear strategy which contains a transparent framework that is available for the staff that belongs to this unit and other involved people at the plant. Further the obstacles, resources, skills, qualifications, goals and benefits must be identified. In addition to the clear direction that department must has, all people should feel that they are sitting at the same boat by implementing partner relationship among department’s members and also among different departments. In order to reach the goals, all departments must be integrated properly, having high level communication, and cooperate continuously regarding working load. That enables the boat staying balanced and floating on the water towards the target(s).
The development of any system, issue, strategy etc must consider the entire organization on a horizontal axis. Thereby, prior to develop any specific working area or a department the impaction on company’s vision and other working areas and departments should be taken into account and must be estimated properly by using life cycle cost methodology. Since this culture enables the company to destroy the wall among plant’s silos and facilitates information’s flow throughout all units. Also, each department will identify and consider the amount of work contribution and the amount of profit, which in return enables them to grow and develop parallel based on company’s requirements and customers demands.
Continuous improvement strategy strives always for finding new methods, techniques, systems, thoughts, tools etc that could enhance the current situation and gives out the desired outcome. Thus, the plant will experience “continuous change process “that rely totally on innovations, experiments, and brain storming. Furthermore, rewarding yourself and your team after a hard work leads to renew your energy and recharges the batteries to continue the journey. Additionally, the empowerment of people encourage them to create and develop new thoughts and ideas and will also in return motivate them to work harder and being result oriented within doing the right things on the right way.
Best regards
Hamid Al-najjar
söndag 25 juli 2010
måndag 12 juli 2010
Analysis contribution to DMAIC-process
DMAIC-process is one of most structured problem-solving methods that can be used in business. The letters are an acronym for the five phases of six sigma improvements, Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control. These phases lead a team logically from defining a problem through implementing solutions linked to underlying causes and establishing best practices to make sure that the solutions stay in place. DMAIC-process structure gives the opportunity to develop and to create new thoughts and ideas based on the current process, product or services.
As known there are some key steps that must be conducted in each phase of DMAIC-process. Some of companies have full team to do all this work, but others outsource skilled people who have black belts or working experiences within this process to perform the whole work and to be able to achieve the goals. Although, I want to highlight in this blog the role of the “analysis” and its contribution in all these phases in spite of there is a special phase called (Analyze-phase).
The following is a summary of the essential key steps/requirements that must be procured in each phase:
1. Define-phase (establishing team charter, identifying sponsors and team resources, validate problem, validate VOC, validate financial benefit, administration etc).
2. Measure-phase (confirming team goal(s), defining of the current situation, collecting and displaying of the data etc).
3. Analyze-phase (determining of the process capability and speed, determining and identifying sources of variation and time bottlenecks, confirm root cause effect on output etc).
4. Improve-phase (generating ideas, conducting experiments, benefits and concern analysis, action plans development, implementation etc).
5. Control-phase (development of controlling plan, monitoring the implementation, examining the process etc).
Analysis
In each phase of DMAIC-process there are key steps that must be taken into account in order to conduct a LSS-project in a proper way and or to accomplish a specific target(s). Furthermore, if we look carefully at these key steps in each phase we will find that there are essential requirements and needs that must be procured and managed in a suitable way in order to carry out the project and achieve the desired condition. Also, the things that we need when planning, starting, executing, finishing and controlling the project are many. However, often there are several options that we must evaluate to simplify the selection of the right things.
Additionally, these requirements/things are not as spare parts that we already have stocked in and managed on a specific shelf in our storeroom, then the only thing we need to do is to go there and bring them, especially when these requirements and needs are varying. It could be as activities, data, information, resources, presentation, discussion etc and often there are more than one alternative that could be available as I mentioned above. Thus, the team leader, team members, managers, and other involved people normally discuss all of these things to be able to determine the needs. This discussion will be based on researching and the collected and available data. Although ,I can call this process “ANALYSIS”, because the involved people will go throughout all these details regardless of the phase, to analyze, compare and evaluate them. As well, What I want to emphasize here is that the analysis uses in all DMAIC-phases and not only in analyze-phase.
Moreover, for example to establish team charter is about to determine what rules, practices etc are best and make sense for the company in accordance with the current condition, that cannot be estimated without analysis and comparison. In addition to that, how can we determine process capability and speed, or how can we identify variation sources and time bottlenecks if we did not perform an analysis throughout the existing data? Furthermore, the selection of the valuable idea(s) when doing brain storming relies on analyzing these ideas to able to determine the most valuable and profitable one as well as the development of control plan and other activities. There are many examples that could show and proof the necessity of analysis and its role throughout DMAIC-phases activity and not only within Analyze-phase.
I want to conclude that the analysis is a significant activity that uses throughout all these phases and not only within analyze-phase, because it enables the analyst to identify, compare, evaluate and determine the requirements to accomplish the work in appropriate way and reach the goals.
Best regards
Hamid Al-najjar
As known there are some key steps that must be conducted in each phase of DMAIC-process. Some of companies have full team to do all this work, but others outsource skilled people who have black belts or working experiences within this process to perform the whole work and to be able to achieve the goals. Although, I want to highlight in this blog the role of the “analysis” and its contribution in all these phases in spite of there is a special phase called (Analyze-phase).
The following is a summary of the essential key steps/requirements that must be procured in each phase:
1. Define-phase (establishing team charter, identifying sponsors and team resources, validate problem, validate VOC, validate financial benefit, administration etc).
2. Measure-phase (confirming team goal(s), defining of the current situation, collecting and displaying of the data etc).
3. Analyze-phase (determining of the process capability and speed, determining and identifying sources of variation and time bottlenecks, confirm root cause effect on output etc).
4. Improve-phase (generating ideas, conducting experiments, benefits and concern analysis, action plans development, implementation etc).
5. Control-phase (development of controlling plan, monitoring the implementation, examining the process etc).
Analysis
In each phase of DMAIC-process there are key steps that must be taken into account in order to conduct a LSS-project in a proper way and or to accomplish a specific target(s). Furthermore, if we look carefully at these key steps in each phase we will find that there are essential requirements and needs that must be procured and managed in a suitable way in order to carry out the project and achieve the desired condition. Also, the things that we need when planning, starting, executing, finishing and controlling the project are many. However, often there are several options that we must evaluate to simplify the selection of the right things.
Additionally, these requirements/things are not as spare parts that we already have stocked in and managed on a specific shelf in our storeroom, then the only thing we need to do is to go there and bring them, especially when these requirements and needs are varying. It could be as activities, data, information, resources, presentation, discussion etc and often there are more than one alternative that could be available as I mentioned above. Thus, the team leader, team members, managers, and other involved people normally discuss all of these things to be able to determine the needs. This discussion will be based on researching and the collected and available data. Although ,I can call this process “ANALYSIS”, because the involved people will go throughout all these details regardless of the phase, to analyze, compare and evaluate them. As well, What I want to emphasize here is that the analysis uses in all DMAIC-phases and not only in analyze-phase.
Moreover, for example to establish team charter is about to determine what rules, practices etc are best and make sense for the company in accordance with the current condition, that cannot be estimated without analysis and comparison. In addition to that, how can we determine process capability and speed, or how can we identify variation sources and time bottlenecks if we did not perform an analysis throughout the existing data? Furthermore, the selection of the valuable idea(s) when doing brain storming relies on analyzing these ideas to able to determine the most valuable and profitable one as well as the development of control plan and other activities. There are many examples that could show and proof the necessity of analysis and its role throughout DMAIC-phases activity and not only within Analyze-phase.
I want to conclude that the analysis is a significant activity that uses throughout all these phases and not only within analyze-phase, because it enables the analyst to identify, compare, evaluate and determine the requirements to accomplish the work in appropriate way and reach the goals.
Best regards
Hamid Al-najjar
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