Six Sigma Project - Measure Phase

Six Sigma Project - Measure Phase
Assembly and test capacity expansion.

Measure Phase

The purpose of the measure phase of the Six Sigma DMAIC process is to get as much details as possible of the current processes and to understand how the system is currently working. To do this we created a current work breakdown matrix (Fig 6) which shows how much time the product spends for each process in each cell location. To do this the team gathered baseline data and summarized the data in a chart so that is can easily be analyzed. This shows clearly that Test Bay A is the constraint as it has the biggest loading at 34.1 hours for each of Product A followed closely by the Clean Room at 29.5 hours.

Current Work Breakdown

Fig 6: Product A, Current Work Breakdown, Click image to enlarge.

Production Drum Rope Diagram

When the the above information is laid out in a production drum rope configuration. (Fig 7), it can be seen that Test Bay A is not available when needed by the second production unit. The second unit must wait until Unit 1 is completely finished in Test bay A so that Unit 1 is not delayed. This raises the non value added time for unit 2 as it has to wait in inventory. This has a serious affect on lead time to the customer.

Fig 7: Production Drum Rope Diagram, Click image to enlarge.

Fishbone Diagram

The team then decided to document the existing problems to identify areas for improvement. The tool chosen for this is the Fishbone diagram as shown in Fig 8.

Fig 8: Fishbone Diagram of current problems, Click image to enlarge

Existing Equipment

Photo 1: Manual Flow Rig, Test Bay A

Photo 2: Assembly Fixture

Brain Storming

The team carried out a brain storming and came up with a variety of improvement ideas. The ideas were then laid out on a Benefits Versus Effort Chart (Fig 9) to identify the low lying fruit versus the non runners. It was decided at this stage that the non conformance problems would be addressed in a separate green belt project as it is beyond the scope of this project. 

Fig 9: Benefits Versus Effort Chart, Click image to enlarge.

Immediate Actions Required

The items in the Implement quarter are "just do it" items and will be carried out right away to show an immediate improvement. The items in both the Challenge quarter and the Possible quarter will move forward to the Analyse phase. The remaining items in the Kill quarter will be dropped for now but can be kept on file for future consideration.

The team have now completed the first two phases of the DMAIC process. (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control), We will now move forward to the Analyze phase.