Project Title

Lean Six Sigma Methodology to solve operational constraints at my company "Sigma Soft"

Please take a few minutes to describe the setting of your Lean Six Sigma project. Be sure to
describe the environment (what is it like where you are?), relevant actors (who is involved?),
and what general challenges you are facing.

My company, Sigma Soft, sells student essentials all across the U. S. With products ranging
from notebooks to pens and pencils, our company had been quite profitable in the first
quarter of the year 2021. Since the start of the second quarter, my company has faced
quality issues with many of our product lines, which has caused us to not be able to push the
products to our customers and meet their demands. The analysis is given below.

Define

Please outline the problem you would like to solve. In your answer be sure to cover:

 What is the problem?

 How does it affect the customer(s)?

 Describe the process and what its critical outputs are.

Collecting a general feedback from our customers, it has come to our attention that our
products haven’t been meeting the quality requirements expected by the customer. Some of
the ball point pens create a rough writing experience, with many new pens even losing the
ability to write due to the ink drying up. These ballpoint pens cost a dollar each. The sales of
this line up of ball point pens have gone down compared to the previous quarter and is
projected to go down even further since the customers are moving to various other brands.
Our factory in Dallas, Texas is able to produce over 10,000 ballpoint pens in a single day,
with quality checks and testing being done once every two months. This lowering of sales and
loosing of valuable customers is a serious issue to the future of the company and I would like to
solve it with the help of this analysis.

Measure

Please establish a current objective baseline for improvement. In your answer, be sure to
include:

 Collect any objective data that you can about the process. You may measure
time, output, defects, or anything else that you deem relevant.

 What is your sense of the accuracy of your measurement? It is important to be

objective about how well you can measure the process' performance.

 What is the gap between current performance and where you believe the
process should be?
The baseline objective for this study would be to improve the quality of the products and
therefore, increase sales. A thorough investigation of the process was conducted, and also
10 batches of products produced over two weeks was inspected for many factors. The data
collected included the batch number, employees involved in producing the batch, number of
employees involved in producing a single batch, quantity of pens produced, the writing
speed of these pens, quality of the raw materials, the supplier of the raw materials for
making the parts and the supplier of the ink, the time it takes for the ink to dry up, the time a
single batch sits on the shelves at the store and to which part of the country the batch was
shipped to. It was seen from this data that the average ball point pen lasts only up to 7 - 12
days and there is a serious rate of pen failure in warm states. This is a serious matter of
concern as our ball point pens are being sold at a range where they are expected to last for
a month on an average. That being said, it was determined that there is something
fundamentally wrong with the production line or the quality of the raw material being supplied

Analyze

Please analyze the problem and select which root causes you are going to fix by:

 List any potential causes of the problem you can identify.

 Identify how the process inputs affect the process outputs - find root causes.
Hint: you could use a Fishbone diagram to illustrate your thinking.
 Prioritize which root causes to pursue in the Improve step.

The failure of the pen can be attributed to the following causes.

1. The pen starts writing with a lighter tone because of the ink not being
delivered to the ball point tip properly. Over the shelf-life period of the pens,
there was a significant drying of the ink and this caused the ink to become
thicker and sufficient ink not being delivered to the ball point tip

2. The pen also starts writing with a lighter tone because the ball point is not of
an expected quality. The ball point tip is made of the metal brass, and it was
determined that the diameter of the ball was about 0.03 mms thick. This is a
fundamental flaw in the design, as the ink was unable to flow properly due to
the ball being excessively thick. The production did not account for the
thermal expansion of metals during warmer temperatures and therefore, the
ink which was being delivered to the tip was not able to flow out completely
and rapidly. Also, the same reason can be attributed to the pens writing
rough.

The design of the ball point is a step in the process input. Our R&D department, have
identified this design flaw to be the root cause for the smooth functioning of these pens.
Also, it was determined that the ink that is being supplied was not of a good quality and
could thicken with even minor variations in temperature. Therefore, it is advised that the
design of the ball points and the quality of the pens has to be improved.

Improve

Please list the steps you have taken to improve the process by applying one of the lean tools
to the problem. Be sure to specify specific actions you have taken to improve the process
and explain in detail how you applied the tool(s).

The first and foremost improvement must come from the quality of the metal ball points
produced. Strict regulations must be passed down to R&D to ensure that they account for
the errors which have been defined above and improvement must be done to the design as
soon as possible. Secondly, the supplier of the ink must be notified of the lack of quality, and
in case of no improvement or a mutual agreement, the supplier of the ink must be changed.

I have also implemented two lean tools in my production facility to improve the workplace
efficiency. The first one being the 5S’s which are summarized as follows.

1. Sort – I will ask the employees to be efficient at their workplace, having only
necessary items and getting rid of the rest which may hinder their
performance

2. Set – I will ensure that the workers are comfortable and the work environment
is modified in such a way to maximize efficiency. Installation of more air
conditioning, and ensuring that workers get enough breaks could be a step
towards this goal.

3. Shine - I will ask the workers to ensure that the machines and workplace is at
the top notch in cleanliness, no residual ink or metal or plastic is left over and
this step this can identify and eliminate issues before they become a larger
problem.

4. Standardize – I will ensure that this standard is properly documented and this
methodology is employed in other areas of the factory as well.

5. Sustain – After successful employment of this method, I will ensure that each
step in the process is repeated to ensure continuous improvement.

The second methodology is the Kaizen Methodology. Using this method, I strive for
continuous improvement with quality being the main motive. I have involved every employee
in the process, being senior officials or even manual labourers. Anyone with suggestions to
improve the process in their domain, be it logistics or manufacturing or finance is able to
make small changes which lead to major improvements in the overall stream.

Control

Please detail how you plan to make the changes you initiated sustainable? What controls
would you put in place to make sure the new process does not change over time?

The whole process of identifying the flaw in the design and rectifying the mistake over time
was necessary to improve the profits the company can gather. Therefore, it is important to
ensure that further flaws don’t come up in the process and even if they come up, they are
identified and rectified immediately. To ensure this, I have implemented the Kaizen
methodology. Also, another major change I have made is that instead of conducting the
quality checks monthly, I have decided to have a dedicated team of officials who will be
ensuring the quality of the products and batches once in every two weeks. This way, any
defective products or batches can be identified and eliminated. Through this implementation,
I hope that the overall process becomes highly sustainable with very little margin for error.

Conclusion

Please share your thoughts of what you learned from this assignment and how you could use
this methodology in the future to improve processes. Do you have any ideas for other projects?

This assignment was helpful in making me understand the fundamentals of lean tools and
the ability to apply these to a real-life problem. Although the scenario I have given above is
completely imaginary and the reasons were made up as well, I have been exposed to the
method in which an industry like Toyota or General Electric may function and therefore, I can
say that I will be able to work on any six-sigma project offered by my industry. I wish to
implement these methodologies in the company I work as well.