What you need to do to get six sigma certified

If you are in the manufacturing industry, it may be worth the investment to obtain your six sigma certification. Six sigma certification increases your desirability to employers and it can significantly increase your salary. Companies that are looking to introduce six sigma like to hire professionals that already have their six sigma certification because they do not need to pay for them to obtain it and they also can use them to train other employees at the company.

If you are currently employed, you may need your six sigma certification to advance within the company. Companies that have implemented six sigma often require their employees to complete their six sigma certification before they will increase their salary or before they will consider them for a promotion.

What is production leveling?

Production leveling, which is also referred to as production smoothing or heijunka (Japanese term), is the technique that was discovered by the Toyota Production System that is used to reduce the amount of waste in the production system so that your company can improve their production efficiency. More often than not, you see production leveling being used in lean manufacturing. The basic idea of production leveling is to produce goods at a constant rate so that you can allow further processing to be carried out at a constant and predictable rate.

Ideally, production can easily be leveled where demand is constant, but what happens in the real world is that the actual customer demand fluctuates. To deal with the customer fluctuations two approaches have been adopted in lean manufacturing, which are demand leveling and production leveling. These approaches have been adopted to help prevent the fluctuations in production, which is done by trying to keep fluctuation in the final assembly line to zero. How production leveling works in manufacturing is that you are never doing the same product repeatedly, as you would do with mass production. Instead, you use small batches of products. For example, Toyota never assembles the same model of car in a batch. How Toyota works is production is leveled by making first one model, then another, etc until the batch is completed. With production leveling, it can refer to leveling by volume or leveling by product mix or type.

What is contract manufacturing software?

Contract manufacturing software allows companies to increase production, reduce costs, and control financial planning. Contract manufacturing software helps companies to find the right contract manufacturer that has the necessary equipment to produce their products. Contract manufacturers are able to produce, assemble, and ship products for their clients. A good contract manufacturer is able to ensure the quality of the product and some even offer design services.

The contract manufacturing software will help companies focus on their internal operations instead of worrying about the manufacturing process. The software will provide an accurate reading of production control, resource planning, and financial management. Companies can also use spreadsheets and other tools to estimate how much money they will save by using contract manufacturing.

What is contract manufacturing?

Contract manufacturing is a company that is hired by another company to make parts of components for another company. Another term that can be used for contract manufacturing is outsourcing your manufacturing because you are hiring another company to do the work for you. Contract manufacturing is used in a variety of different industries including defense, aerospace and the medical field to name a few.

Contract manufacturing works by having the original equipment manufacturer approach the contract manufacturer with a design for something that the original manufacturer needs made. The contract manufacturer will give them quotes on how much it will cost for them to make the product that the original equipment manufacturer has asked for. The contract manufacturer will also give the original manufacturer quotes on how long it will take them to finish the product that is needed. In order to find the best price the original manufacturer is going to go around to various contract manufacturers to obtain quotes and they will use all of the information that is provided in the quotes to help them make a decision as to what contract manufacturer they will use.

What is a control chart, and how is it used

A control chart, also called a Shewart or process behavior chart, is a tool that is used in manufacturing and other businesses to monitor processes and to assure that the processes remain stable. Walter Shewart discovered control charts in 1924 when he worked for Bell Labs. They were discovered because of Bell Labs need to reduce the frequency of failures and repairs to their equipment that was buried underground. Control charts are most often used in Six Sigma as a statistical tool. In Six Sigma the control chart is intended to assess the nature variation in a process, but it is also used to facilitate forecasting and management.

Control charts are actually one of the seven basic tools of quality control. They are used in conjunction with the histogram, Pareto chart, check sheet, cause and effect diagram, flowchart, and the scatter diagram. A control chart is used to help distinguish process variation due to assignable causes from those that are caused by causes that are out of their control.

Waste management options

With manufacturing comes waste. However, when dealing with the excess of your particular trade there are options available for reducing the amount of waste produced and or dealing with the surplus. Simple waste management techniques can help your business save money as well. Below are a few tips and suggestions to help in reducing and managing your leftover materials.

The first step in reducing or managing any kind of program is participation. This isn't referring to employee participation so much as executive participation. The program has to be led from the top down for success to follow. If employees see that the top level executives participate and strongly follow the guidelines then they themselves are more willing to do so. The plan needs to be implemented from the top down. Words won't cut it. Everyone has to get involved and feel as if their part in the program helps to make a difference.

Visual control a key component of production improvement

ompanies that implement lean manufacturing often use visual control in the form of heijunka boxes or the kanban method. Visual control is simply a visual way to help employees understand where things go, where to find things, and what to do with wastes. Visual control will make the processes easier because employees can focus on a specific color to identify a problem. Visual control quickly conveys a message to employees without having to hold a meeting.

Lean implementation focus on reducing wastes and improving production. Using visual controls as part of your lean manufacturing process will help your company maintain a certain level of consistency. Using visual controls, your employees can compare the products that have come off the assembly line to another one that is correct. This will help you make sure that all the products being shipped to your customers are the same.

Using statistical process control

Statistical process control, also referred to as SPC, involves using statistical techniques to measure and analyze the variation in processes. Statistical process control is mostly used in the manufacturing process to monitor the product quality and to maintain processes to fixed targets. Most manufacturing plants use statistical process control to improve the quality of their processes. However, statistical process control is rarely use don its own, most of the time you will find that manufacturing plants use statistical process control in addition to other techniques, such as process improvement plans, variation reduction, and sampling plans.

Statistical process control is going to be used by most manufacturing plants as a way to monitor the consistency of the processes that they use to manufacture a product as designed. The main goal of statistical process control is to get and keep processes under control, regardless of how good or bad the design is of the product being manufactured. All that statistical process control is supposed to do is make sure that the product is being manufactured as intended, by following the design that it is assigned. Statistical process control cannot improve a poorly designed product's reliability, all it can do is maintain the consistency of how the product is made, which is only as good as its designed reliability.

Using kaizen principles

Kaizen is the Japanese strategy for continuous process improvement. The main goal of kaizen is to eliminate waste. This strategy is similar to lean manufacturing, with a few differences. The kaizen approach focuses on continuous process improvement in all aspects of manufacturing. For a business; the kaizen approach works at continually improving all the functions of a company from the CEO down to the assembly line of workers.

Kaizen and lean manufacturing both want to increase customer satisfaction, reduce waste, and provide a smooth and steady workflow. Lean manufacturing was developed on the basic principles of kaizen.

Using computers to aid your quality control

Quality assurance is vital to business. Businesses need to make sure their quality control processes are up to par. Losses in quality can cost companies lots of money and possibly customers. One way in which businesses have chosen to help keep their quality assurance processes up to speed is through the aid of computer technologies. This article will identify some of the ways in which computers can aid the process. As always, there is far more research out there to help identify benefits to computers in quality control, but here are just a few.

One of the benefits for having computers aid your quality control process is to eliminate human error. It is not a negative connotation, but computers are programmed to use specific definitions to measure quality. These definitions are fixed for a computer. No matter which computer uses them, they are the same. When humans measure quality of products variations can occur. One individual's classification for firmness can vary from another. So if you have several different people measuring quality you can have several different standards.

Using air testing equipment

Having clean air is an important goal for manufacturing companies. With all the health complications that have been linked to asbestos, mold, and emissions, it is more important than ever for manufacturing firms to use air testing equipment. Air testing equipment will show manufacturing plants the pollutants they are emitting. The environmental protection agency (EPA) has placed new restrictions on manufacturing companies and the pollutants they emit.

Different pollutants have different effects on the air quality. Some pollutants will harm humans while others will damage plants. Air testing equipment can help manufacturing companies determine if they are emitting too much of a certain type of pollutant which could cause long-term health effects.

Using a time series plot with six sigma

Six Sigma is a business management strategy used to help remove the causes of defects and errors in both manufacturing and business processes. The Six Sigma strategy asserts that continuous efforts to achieve stable and predictable process results are vital to business success and the manufacturing and business processes lend themselves to having characteristics that can be easily measured, analyzed, improved, and controlled.

It was originally developed by Motorola and follows a strict sequence of steps measured by a financial marker (cost reduction or profit increase). The process itself utilizes a set of quality management methods, statistical methods, and a special infrastructure of people who are expert in these methods. These experts are referred to as "Black Belts". The Six Sigma strategy is data-driven and uses DMAIC and DMADV sub-methodologies. DMAIC stands for define, measure, analyze, improve, and control. DMADV stands for define, measure, analyze, design, and verify. A problem or concern area is identified and objectively defined. The output of that process is then measured and analyzed for variations. The process can be improved if the variations are eliminated.

Upgrading your manufacturing equipment

Whenever you purchase computer software, manufacturing equipment, and other machines, you should expect to upgrade your equipment within a few years. Computer software is outdated the minute it leaves the programmers desk. In order to keep up with software, you need to check the web site each month and download new patches and updates. Manufacturing equipment is a little different. Instead of downloading an update, you need to either replace a portion of your existing machine or you need to upgrade all of your machines.

Training for quality assurance

Quality Assurance or QA is a systematic method used to ensure that products and or services meet or exceeds customers' requirements. The process is planned out and systematic in nature. Quality assurance cannot absolutely guarantee the production of quality products, but it helps to make this ideal more likely. There are two key principles when dealing with quality assurance: "fit for purpose" and "right first time".

Fit for purpose indicates that the product or service should be suitable for its intended purposes. It is wasteful to produce products that do not fit the needs of your customers. Remember, quality is dictated by your clients or customers, not by society in general. Even "low-end" items can be quality items if they fit the need of a specific user.
The Right first time principle is just as it sounds. Quality assurance helps in eliminating duplication of work and mistakes. It would include regulation of the quality for raw materials, products and components, assemblies, services related to your production, management practices, and the production and inspection processes.

Tracking process flow to improve production speed

If you own or manage a manufacturing company, you have probably thought about your company's production speed at one point or another. Usually the higher up in management you are the more often you will think about production speed. The main reason that people who work in manufacturing think about production speed is that the company's production speed is directly tied to a company's profits. If you can improve your company's production speed you will end up with a higher rate of production, which means you will end up with a higher profit. Everybody in the business world knows that the higher the profits the better it is for everybody involved, especially the company. Even if you do think about production speeds that do not mean that, you know what you can do to improve your production speeds. One of the best things that you can improve your production speed is through tracking your process flow.

In order to begin tracking your process flow the first thing that you will need to do is fully understand what a process flow is. In manufacturing, the process flow is the stapes of a procedure that are used in making, delivering, or accomplishing a product or service. The process flow also includes the steps that influence the layout of your company and your decisions about technology, not to mention how your company works together. In order to build a strong company that has a competitive edge you need to realize that your process flow is a very strong aspect of how your company performs. You also need to realize that when applying the concept of process flow to a given procedure it can be classified as a job shop or flow shop. A job shop is very flexible and uses general resources, where a flow shop is not a very flexible procedure and only uses specialized resources.