Betting on Continuous Improvement
The Industrial and Technological sectors are becoming increasingly competitive and the search for "Continuous Improvement" is nowadays a permanent commitment for organizations in order to strengthen their position in the market.
The demand for high efficiency and maximum quality, rising production costs (equipment, raw materials and labor) and strong opposition from competitors are some of the challenges that make it increasingly important to ensure that processes are monitored, with a focus on performance improvement results.
With this in mind, in 2017 we started our Kaizen Project (a Japanese word meaning Change for the Better) because it is essential for Contisystems to succeed in implementing a Continuous Improvement program, as a basis for being able to "Keep Promises and Captivate Customers with Products and Services of Excellence", while remaining a prosperous and dynamic company, as we committed to in our Company Plan.
Following the Lean methodology applied to Production Management (originating in the Toyota Production System (TPS) created by Taiichi Ohno), one of our main objectives is to eliminate Waste within our organization. Waste is any activity that does not meet the customer's needs or expectations and for which the customer is not willing to pay. Although it may seem that all our activities are useful, most of the time spent in an organization is spent on tasks that do not add value and are typically associated with 7 types of Waste.
7 Types of Waste:
Overproduction:
Create more material, information, evidence or processing than is necessary.
Producing more than the customer orders requires waste. Causes deviations with a negative impact on the business such as increased production costs, inventory, labor, transport, raw materials, among others.
Inventory:
More material or information than necessary.
Excess inventory takes up space and other resources so that it can be managed and tracked. There is also the added risk that the inventory will become obsolete or degrade, losing its value.
Transportation:
Movement of materials, people or information.
Movement of products or materials between processes, often due to poorly defined flows, is a major source of waste.
Movement:
Workers traveling to access materials or information.
Any movement of people that doesn't add value to the process is waste and is often associated with poor workplace organization.
Waiting time:
Wait for materials or information.
This occurs when resources (people or equipment) are forced to wait unnecessarily due to delays in the arrival of materials or the availability of other resources.
Defective products:
Errors that require reprocessing or repetition to correct the problem.
Any process, product or service that doesn't meet the specifications is a waste.
Over-processing:
Process more than desired to obtain the product.
Any processing that does not add value to the product or is the result of inadequate technology or materials is waste.
Many companies invest (human and financial resources) in implementing Continuous Improvement initiatives, but many fail to maintain the results achieved and return to where they started. At the root of this regression is not only the difficulty in developing stable production processes and robust procedures, but above all the failure to establish a true culture of continuous improvement, focused on achieving better results and lived by "everyone, all the time, everywhere".
In order to promote this involvement, we focus on holding Daily Kaizen meetings as one of the tools that foster the sustainability of improvements. The routine of monitoring and improving processes through a daily feedback meeting to analyze production indicators and the progress of the actions defined to solve problems is essential to achieving better results.
Daily Kaizen covers eight basic principles:
Creating value for the customer: monitoring the improvement of processes and the evolution of product quality;
Involvement:
Share results with all team members and motivate commitment to continuous improvement;
Compliance with schedules:
Set deadlines for the objectives to be achieved and monitor the progress of the implementation of the action plans;
Elimination of waste:
Since waste is the main problem in operational efficiency, eliminating it is fundamental to improving the profitability of the business;
Visual Management:
Make the entire management of the production process visible through visual management boards, where indicators and action plans can be monitored by everyone;
Gemba:
An expression of Japanese origin that means "real place" and indicates that we should analyze the problem in the place where it occurs, based on the data collected and relevant information from those "on the ground";
Standardization:
Making the process standardized by standardizing procedures and expanding improvements to workstations;
Training and qualification:
Increase the level of knowledge of the teams.
As part of our Kaizen Project, we also use the 6 Sigma methodology to support the strategy of maximizing Value within our organization, seeking improvements in the processes, products and services offered to our Clients. The name 6 Sigma comes from "σ" (sigma), which in statistical analysis represents a measure of variability and can be used to indicate, for example, how far the result of a manufacturing process deviates from the Customer's specification. The higher this sigma, the fewer the defects, i.e. the better the products or services produced.
How does 6 Sigma work?
6 Sigma defines a methodology for analyzing and solving problems, structured around the following stages of the DMAIC cycle:
Define:
Define the problem based on information from the Client (internal or external) and the project objectives;
Measure:
Measure the main variables of the current process and gather all the data considered important;
Analysis:
Analyze the data to determine possible cause-effect relationships and try to identify the root cause of the problems identified;
Improve:
Improve and optimize the process, focusing on data analysis and using techniques such as experiment design, poka-yoke and work standardization, creating a new process state.
Control:
Control the future state of the process to ensure that any deviation from the target is corrected. Implement control systems such as statistical process control or production framework, and continuously monitor processes.
We hope that by sharing our inspiration for productive organization, we can also inspire you to learn more and better about these working methodologies that have helped us so much. Here are some links that we recommend to learn more about some of the concepts.
https://www.lean.org/whatslean/
