Analysis phase

Cause & Effect Analysis

The cause & effect analysis covers potential causes for our problem, with data to

support the causes that we identified as the most likely root causes. The interpretation

of the data included cover how we made our inferences.

Histogram/Graphical Analysis

The graphical analyses show additional information to help interpret data and identify

correlations and issues that will need to be evaluated upon improvement

implementation.

Process Analysis

Process analysis including statistical analysis shows a statistical overview of the tasks

within the overall process and identifies inferences and goals for improvement for the

next phase.

Value-Added Analysis

The value-added analysis highlights waste in each process task and the factor that

causes waste while outlining minimum requirements to meet customer goals and also

overall goals to ensure that averages across the process are statistically under the

specified limits.

Cost of Poor Quality

The COPQ Analysis shows the costs of designing and manufacturing our product

with poor quality. The invisible costs associated with COPQ will most likely have the

largest impact because we will not be able to take our project further and develop our

product for other customers if customer satisfaction is not at the forefront of

production.

FMEA

The failure modes and effect analysis gives a broad overview of the risks of the

operators not carrying out process tasks effectively/safely. This FMEA is further

evidence that the product may provide significant improvements and lower risk

associated with operations.

Summary of Next Steps

Summary of next steps discusses how we will finish the analyze phase and how we

will prepare for the improvement phase.

Questions

a) Do you believe there was an appropriate use of tools?

Yes. The tool use was appropriate for the current phase. Additional tools will be used

in the improvement phase to gauge the success of implementations.

b) What tools did you use beyond each required tool? Why did you use these

tools? What benefit did you gain because of using these tools?

Several graphical tools showed correlations between different variables to best identify

the factors that are affecting the process.

c) Do you believe the project is ready to move to the next phase? Why or why

not?

Yes. Evaluating the improvements will be the next critical step in the project.

d) If the project is not ready, what measures need to be taken to recover?

Provide details on steps, timing, impact, and benefit to the project.

The project is ready.

e) Does the project charter, problem, scope of other aspect of the project need

to be refined? Please explain.

The scope of project trial experimentation may need to be changed if the customer

feels there are any other trials that should be measured for the purpose of baselining

operator/platform performance to evaluate improvements after the installation of the

product. The customer may also find that tasks could be improved with additional

component installation. It is unlikely, given the current budget and scope, that

additional components will be feasible.

Problem: Robot operators, on average, do not complete response tasks in a satisfactory time.

Selected Root Causes

Training

The data shows significant spread across operators on performance time. This

is due to lack of training and/or lack of experience for operators. This is based on

data collected by survey at each office. The data will be used to further analyze results

of changes during the improvement phase.

Platform

The robot platform itself is identified as a root cause of inefficient operation

time, due to antiquated camera causing poor depth perception. This problem affects

Inefficient operation time Training Policy Hardware Platform Operator Display

all operators, although some have improved over time with more hands-on training.

Data will be gathered after improvements with the assumption that all times across

operators will decrease, with training time held constant.

Operator

As previously identified, lack of operator experience shows significant effects

on their time to complete process tasks. Eye fatigue may also increase time in later

trials. The product development will focus on eye fatigue through incorporation of
3D, eye-strain prevention glasses to minimize the effects of eye fatigue on operators

throughout trials.

Graphical Analysis
COPQ Summary
Visible costs

COPQ associated with visible costs is estimated to be about 20% of total costs of good sold. This cost
would be due to poor inspection/appraisal or design for quality implementation

Invisible costs

Invisible costs would be vastly detrimental to the project as expansion and increased sales relies on
customer satisfaction and investment into the program. Without these, we would likely lose our budget
from the RSO office and be unable to provide products to the rest of our customers across the EOD
enterprise. Decreased customer satisfaction as a result of failing to improve customer processes with
our product would also decrease the chance of the enterprise adopting the product through the EOD
R&D office.
SUMMARY OF NEXT STEPS

1) Collect additional data from Trial 2.

2) Compare data to determine outliers based on operator ability.

3) Compare averages to determine task/process focus for measuring

improvements against baseline in next phase.

4) Measure data from other task parameters not included in current data

analysis.
5) Seek feedback from customer based on prioritized data and

measurements.

6) Analyze data further to assist in developing product and creating process

improvements and new training plan for customers.

7) Re-evaluate design of experiments to ensure stability and reliability of

trial processes.

8) Develop product and re-conduct same experiments with product

prototype.

9) Gather and analyze data based to assess improvement efforts.

10) Validate or re-assess impact of new product enhancements for

platform/operator performance.