I work for a company that has been using the same tools and processes to bring their products to production for the last 60+ years . Within the last 5 years we have noticed that our competition has been nipping at our heals as far as market shares are concerned. We have always had this mind set that we are the best and no one can touch us, so why improve ourselves. As the market closes in on us and materials are increasing in price, we felt a need to improve our Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) system.
The product lifecycle management system consists of processes, personnel, and tools. Processes were the first to be improved upon. A few departments within our manufacturing were currently using Lean Six Sigma to help improve the assembly-lines. Needless to say, we had them give us a more understanding of the methodology. After we saw the improvements that were a result of these methods, we knew we needed to get more individuals trained on the tools. Our president of the company gave the business a goal to have so-many individuals trained on these tools. After the first year went by and the number was met, he placed another goal that would keep increasing every year. The goal was to have so-many projects created and completed each year. This was a factor also of how many "Champions," "Green Belts," "Black Belts," and "Master Black Belts" that we have already trained or still need to train.
Later on, we implemented Team Leads to manage the overall Lean Six Sigma initiative and continuously seek processes to improve. Now that we had that portion under control, we had to then look at a PLM tool to help enforce these newly created processes.
No comments:
Post a Comment