TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT

PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICES

KANBAN

SMED

BRAINSTORMING

BENCHMARKING

SUBJECT : PRODUCTIVITY & QUALITY

MANAGEMENT

COLLEGE : BHAVAN’S COLLEGE

CLASS : S.Y. B.M.S. (B)

ACADEMIC YEAR : 2009-2010 (SEMESTER-IV)

SUBMITTED BY:

SWATI TIKKU 101

RITEN SAKHIYA 85

JAIVEER DUGGAL 21

POOJA PATIL 76

JASBIR MAAN 50

SNEHAL RAMTEKKAR 82

KANBAN

DEFINITION:A system of continuous supply of components, parts and supplies, such that workers have what they need, where they need it, when they need it.

The word Kan means "visual" in Japanese and the word "ban" means "card". So Kanban refers to "visual cards".

The original Kanban system is believed to have been developed by Toyota in the early stages of what we would call its JIT improvement campaign. The particular feature of a Kanban system is that it short-circuits normal ordering procedures: as supplies of a Kanban-controlled material are used up, new supplies are requested simply by releasing a re-order card which is sent direct to the supply point (i.e. the manufacturer or stockists). It is often described as a ‘pull’ system, in contrast with traditional ordering procedures, which ‘push’ orders into the system.

The term ‘Kanban’ comes from the Japanese language, in which Kanban simply means ‘card’. Somehow, the word Kanban seems to have caught imagination of manufacturing people in the Western World, even on the shop floor, and today it is often used to describe simplified ordering systems which a Japanese terminology in manufacturing companies in the Western world, even if the interpretation isn’t quite true to the original! However, in this section I shall stick to the true meaning of Kanban, the other types of application being covered in the next section, on improving the performance of suppliers.

WORKING OF KANBAN

Let's say one of the components needed to make widgets is a 42" stem-bolt and it arrives on pallets. There are 100 stem-bolts on a pallet. When the pallet is empty, the person assembling the widgets takes a card that was attached to the pallet and sends it to the stem-bolt manufacturing area. Another pallet of stem-bolts is then manufactured and sent to the widget assembler. A new pallet of stem-bolts is not made until a card is received. This is Kanban, in its simplest form.

A more realistic example would probably involve at least two pallets. The widget assembler would start working from the second pallet while new stem-bolts were being made to refill the first pallet.

If this was a high volume widget manufacturing facility, each widget assembly station might empty a pallet of stem-bolts in just a few minutes, and there could be 15 or 20 widget assembly stations. Thus there would be a continual flow of cards going back to the stem-bolt manufacturing area that would cause a continual flow of pallets of stem-bolts to be sent to the widget assembly stations.

KANBAN IS PULL (DEMAND) SYSTEM

This is called a "pull" type of production system. The number of stem-bolts that are made depends on the customer demand--in other words the number of cards received by the stem-bolt manufacturing area.

Systems other than cards may be used. For example, the empty pallets may be returned to the stem-bolt manufacturing area. Each empty pallet received indicates a need to manufacture 100 more stem-bolts. For other types of components, bins, boxes or cages might be used instead of pallets. Or components might be stored on shelves in the widget assembly area. When a shelf became empty that signals that more components need to be manufactured and the shelf refilled.

In Kanban the method of handling the components is flexible, and depends on the needs of the manufacturing process.

KANBAN - RESPONSIVE TO CUSTOMERS

Kanban results in a production system that is highly responsive to customers. In the above example, the production of widgets will vary depending on customer demand. And as the widget demand varies, so will the internal demand for widget components. Instead of trying to anticipate the future (predicting the future is difficult), Kanban reacts to the needs.

Kanban does not necessarily replace all existing material flow systems within a facility. Other systems such as Materials Requirement Planning (MRP) and Reorder Point (ROP) may remain in operation. Kanban is most beneficial when high volume/low value components are involved. For low volume and high value components, other materials management system may be a better option.

SINGLE MINUTE EXCHANGE OF DIES (SMED)

DEFINIITION:

SMED is the term used to represent the Single Minute Exchange of Die or setup time that can be counted in a single digit of minutes. SMED is often used interchangeably with “quick changeover”. SMED and quick changeover are the practice of reducing the time it takes to change a line or machine from running one product to the next. The need for SMED and quick changeover programs is more popular now than ever due to increased demand for product variability, reduced product life cycles and the need to significantly reduce inventories.

It was developed by Shigeo Shingo of Toyota Motor Company, Japan in 1980s. Shingo's approach was to separate setup time into "internal" and "external" activities. An internal activity is one that can only be done with the machine stopped; an External activity is anything that can be done before or after the set up without stopping the machine. According to Shingo a simple approach to achieving a quick setup and changeover of the dies could be achieved by:

Maximising external activities Converting internal activities to external where possible (I always pre-

heat the oven before I put my pizza in to save time Engineering or streamlining all remaining internal activities

Massive gains have been achieved by using the SMED system and this was clearly illustrated in 1982 at Toyota, when the die punch set up time in the cold-forging process was reduced over a three-month period from one hour and forty minutes to three minutes.

The successful implementation of SMED and quick changeover is the key to a competitive advantage for any manufacturer that produces, prepares, processes or packages a variety of products on a single machine, line or cell. SMED and quick changeover allows manufacturers to keep less inventory while supporting customer demand for products with even slight variations. It also allows manufacturers to keep expensive equipment running because it can produce a variety of products. SMED has a lot of hidden benefits that range from reducing WIP to faster ROI of capital equipment through better utilization.

To understand how SMED can help we have to look at the changeover process. Typically when the last product of a run has been made the equipment is shut down and locked out, the line is cleaned, tooling is removed or adjusted, new tooling may be installed to accommodate the next scheduled product. Adjustments are made, critical values are met (die temperature, accumulators filled, hoppers loaded, etc.) and eventually the startup process begins – running product while performing adjustments and bringing the quality and speed up to standard. This process takes time, time that can be reduced through SMED.

Effective SMED programs identify and separate the changeover process into key operations – External Setup involves operations that can be done while the machine is running and before the changeover process begins, Internal Setup are those that must take place when the equipment is stopped. Aside from that, there may also be non-essential operations. The following is a brief example of how to attack the SMED process:

Eliminate non-essential operations – Adjust only one side of guard rails instead of both, replace only necessary parts and make all others as universal as possible.

Perform External Set-up – Gather parts and tools, pre-heat dies, have the correct new product material at the line… there's nothing worse than completing a changeover only to find that a key product component is missing.

Simplify Internal Set-up – Use pins, cams, and jigs to reduce adjustments, replace nuts and bolts with hand knobs, levers and toggle clamps… remember that no matter how long the screw or bolt only the last turn tightens it.

Measure, measure, measure – The only way to know if changeover time and start-up waste is reduced is to measure it!

Always measure time lost to changeover and any waste created in the start-up process so that you can benchmark improvement programs. Ever see a racing pit crew? They have mastered SMED and quick changeover! In less than 15 seconds they can perform literally dozens of operations from changing all tires and refuelling the car to making suspension adjustments and watering the driver. Watch closely next time – you will always see one person with a stopwatch benchmarking their progress.

BRAIN STORMING

Brainstorming can be an effective way to generate lots of ideas on a specific issue and then determine which idea – or ideas – is the best solution. Brainstorming is most effective with groups of 8-12 people and should be performed in a relaxed environment. If participants feel free to relax and joke around, they'll stretch their minds further and therefore produce more creative ideas.

A brainstorming session requires a facilitator, a brainstorming space and something on which to write ideas, such as a white-board a flip chart or software tool. The facilitator's responsibilities include guiding the session, encouraging participation and writing ideas down.

Brainstorming works best with a varied group of people. Participants should come from various departments across the organisation and have different backgrounds. Even in specialist areas, outsiders can bring fresh ideas that can inspire the experts.

There are numerous approaches to brainstorming, but the traditional approach is generally the most effective because it is the most energetic and openly collaborative, allowing participants to build on each others' ideas.

Creativity exercises, relaxation exercises or other fun activities before the session can help participants relax their minds so that they will be more creative during the brainstorming session.

BRAINSTORMING STEPS: 1. Gather the participants from as wide a range of disciplines with as

broad a range of experience as possible. This brings many more creative ideas to the session.

2. Write down a brief description of the problem - the leader should take control of the session, initially defining the problem to be solved with any criteria that must be met, and then keeping the session on course.

3. Use the description to get everyone's mind clear of what the problem is and post it where it can be seen. This helps in keeping the group focused.

4. Encourage an enthusiastic, uncritical attitude among brainstormers and encourage participation by all members of the team. Encourage them to have fun!

5. Write down all the solutions that come to mind (even ribald ones). Do NOT interpret the idea, however you may rework the wording for clarity's sake.

6. Do NOT evaluate ideas until the session moves to the evaluation phase. Once the brainstorming session has been completed, the results of the session can be analyzed and the best solutions can be explored either using further brainstorming or more conventional solutions.

7. Do NOT censor any solution, no matter how silly it sounds. The silly ones will often lead to creative ones - the idea is to open up as many possibilities as possible, and break down preconceptions about the limits of the problem.

8. The leader should keep the brainstorming on subject, and should try to steer it towards the development of some practical solutions.

9. Once all the solutions have been written down, evaluate the list to determine the best action to correct the problem.

The process looks like this:

This process helps the members to better understand the proposals along with their pros and cons. The main disadvantage is the tendency to forge a compromise in order to avoid choosing sides.

BENCHMARKING

Benchmarking is the process of comparing the business processes and performance metrics including cost, cycle time, productivity, or quality to another that is widely considered to be an industry standard benchmark or best practice. Essentially, benchmarking provides a snapshot of the performance of your business and helps you understand where you are in relation to a particular standard. The result is often a business case and "Burning Platform" for making changes to make improvements. The term benchmarking was first used by cobblers to measure people's feet for shoes. They would place someone's foot on a "bench" and mark it out to make the pattern for the shoes. Benchmarking is most used to measure performance using a specific indicator (cost per unit of measure, productivity per unit of

measure, cycle time of x per unit of measure or defects per unit of measure) resulting in a metric of performance that is then compared to others.

Also referred to as "best practice benchmarking" or "process benchmarking", it is a process used in management and particularly strategic management, in which organizations evaluate various aspects of their processes in relation to best practice companies' processes, usually within a peer group defined for the purposes of comparison. This then allows organizations to develop plans on how to make improvements or adapt specific best practices, usually with the aim of increasing some aspect of performance. Benchmarking may be a one-off event, but is often treated as a continuous process in which organizations continually seek to improve their practices.

Zerox corporation USA, introduced benchmarking in 1980s when there global market share shrank to 35% in 1981. Having invented photo copy machines in 1959, the company had virtual monopoly till 1970s. Zerox became synonymous with photo copying. With total quality management approach during 1980s, when they perfected the use of benchmarking as a quality tool, Zerox could regain its market leadership by mid-1980.

Motorola, USA and many other global companies had similar experience with benchmarking. Motorola successfully practiced internal benching, resulting in tenfold improvement in ten years. Similar is true with all other companies who could practice benchmarking.

Usually, it is left to an organization to decide the level of benchmarking it chooses to apply. The 4 basic levels are:

1. Internal benchmarking2. Competitive benchmarking3. Non-competitive benchmarking4. World-class benchmarking

Like other productivity and quality improvement tools, benchmarking also calls for a systematic management approach. The 4 generic phases applied for benchmarking application are:

1. Planning2. Analysis3. Integration

4. ActionZerox elaborated this approach as a 10-step benchmarking process, as shown

It is well documented by now that successful implementation of benchmarking can give several benefits. Prominent among them are:

Promotes understanding of our own processes Aims to adapt rather than invent Elimination on non value process steps Sets better performance measures Focus on processes and measurements over products Creates cultural changes

Finally, the essence of benchmarking is “moving from where are to where we want to be”.