Continuous Improvement of Quality

• Continuous improvement of quality is necessary for sustained customer satisfaction and competitiveness.
• The Lean Culture is a crucial aspect of the Lean Production System, where trained workers willingly participate in continuous improvement of every aspect of the system for its successful implementation.
• Dr. Deming advised against investments in new equipment for quality improvement and advocated the effective use of current machinery and resources for substantial improvements in quality and productivity.
• Dr. Deming's PDCA Cycle, with four steps—plan, do, check, and act—is a road map for making continuous improvements.
• The PDCA cycle was originally recommended by Dr. Deming's mentor, Dr. Walter A. Shewhart.
• When Dr. Deming was teaching quality methods in Japan, he referred to the PDCA cycle as the “Shewhart Cycle”.
• The Japanese started referring to the PDCA cycle as the “Deming Cycle”, and that name stuck.
• The PDCA cycle is a process of solving a problem, with the following steps: plan, do, check, and act.
• The structured approach to benchmarking, as summarized from Camp and DeToro (1999), follows a 10-step process and is typically implemented by a team.
• Pareto analysis is a problem-solving tool that involves ranking all potential problem areas or sources of variation according to their contribution to cost or total variation.
• Benchmarking involves identifying areas for improvement in critical business performance and seeking to emulate the best-in-class performers within the industry or related fields.
• Brainstorming sessions usually adopt a certain set of conventions to maximize the information generated.
• Brainstorming involves exercising the brains of the members of a team, who possess an intimate knowledge of the process under study, to list all of the causes that contribute to the problem at hand and find possible ways of solving it.
• Brainstorming is a technique used to generate ideas from a group of individuals in any stage of any problem-solving activity.
• In the plan step of the PDCA cycle, data is documented and analyzed to understand the causes and their effects, and theories on the root causes are proposed.
• Scatter Plots, also known as the correlation diagram, is a method for observing the relationship between two variables.
• Control charts serve as a method for monitoring a process variable or product characteristic to maintain a consistent level.
• Benefits of Brainstorming include Efficient Resource Allocation, Adaptability to Change, Innovation in Processes and Technologies, Continuous Improvement, and Diverse perspectives.
• Cause-and-Effect Diagram, also known as Ishikawa’s fishbone diagram, is a method that helps a team to think together on paper and is the first level of dissecting the process to discover the root causes.
• Structured method in brainstorming involves participants going in turns, one idea per turn until all ideas are exhausted.
• Unstructured method in brainstorming allows a participant who has an idea to raise it and in no specific turn of order.
• Histogram provides the means of observing the variability and centering of a population.
• In the do step of the PDCA cycle, experiments are conducted on a limited scale to understand the relationship among the important variables in the process.
• In the check step of the PDCA cycle, data from the experiment is studied to see if a good understanding of the process and its variables has been obtained.
• Simple Linear Regression establishes the relationship between the response variable and an independent variable by fitting a straight line.
• Correlation analysis is a method to study the linear relationship between random variables, measured by the correlation coefficient.
• Regression analysis is a mathematical approach to studying the relationship between an independent variable and a dependent variable.
• Quality control, poke-yoke, and jidoka are three major functional modules of lean manufacturing.
• Lean manufacturing aims to eliminate seven types of wastes: defects, overproduction, inventory, transportation, motion, waiting, and overprocessing.
• The coefficient of determination (R2) measures the proportion of total variability in the observations of the dependent variable that is explained by the regression line.
• Nonlinear Regression is used when curvature is suspected in the relationship between two variables, and curvilinear models can be fitted to the data.
• Lean manufacturing is a production system created by Toyota to deliver products of right quality, quantity, and price to meet customer needs.
• Multiple Regression is used when a dependent variable is influenced by several independent variables.
• Visual Management: Making the visual appearances of the workplace clear, symmetric, and uncluttered to easily detect deviations.
• 5S Approach: Sort, Set-in-order, Shine, Standardize, Sustain - a method for organizing and maintaining an efficient workplace.
• Standardization: Providing standard operating procedures for each operation to ensure consistency.
• Leveling and Balancing: Ensuring consistent production schedules and distributing work evenly among operations to prevent bottlenecks and reduce cycle time.
• Takt Time: The maximum time allowed to produce one unit to meet customer demand.
• Total Productive Maintenance (TPM): A comprehensive approach to maintaining machinery and tools in optimal working condition, involving all personnel engaged in planning, operating, and maintaining the equipment.
• Value stream mapping: A flow process chart that enables identifying operations that add value to the product and those that do not add value.