Solutions for Profits Seminar II

I joined “Solutions for Profits” seminar – part 2, which was organized by International Supply Chain Education Alliance (ISCEA), on 22 Nov 2008. My classmates and I were speakers in Certified Lean Master Program to share our project and achievement.


In the beginning, Mr. Henry Soo (Director of Operation, ISCEA.HK) gave an opening speech and called “The Miller, His Son, and Their Ass” (Aesop’s Fables). He analyzed the way to achieve the common goal from the story situation (“Care for Son” or “Dutiful to Father”) to our workplace. Finally, he concluded solution for profit is “Learning – Change – Improvement”.

The keynote speaker, Dr. John Man (Principal, SPI, Founder and Councilor, IAQC) gave a talk named “Six Sigma promise: Change Acceleration with lower risk”. He emphasized “Fact Based Decision Making”. How do you CHANGE? CHANGE is come form SOLUTION. SOLUTION has three components, i.e. Correction, Improvement and INNOVATION.

Then, He introduced “Re” factors which affect Business Performance Management. “Re” factors included: Repair/Reprocess; Rehandle; Recheck; Reanalysis and Retrain.

He also introduced TLS model which is a strategy combined TOC, Lean & Six Sigma.

The second speaker was Ms. Karen Ng (O&M Manager, Lever Style Inc.). Her project aimed to establish lean warehouse by reengineering the garment fulfillment process for speed (reducing cycle times) and flexibility. She modified the material flow layout, introduced 5S and Bar Code system. Finally, she obtained improvement results including on-time processing of received materials, high 5S audit score, high % OTD of materials to factory and reduced number of days from material picking to delivery.

She concluded the key success factors for Lean project as follows:
1. Top management commitment and involvement
2. Engage staff in improvement efforts
3. Cultivate a continuous improvement mindsets among involved staff
4. Develop and find successor to take over the role of change agent.

I was the third speaker (Manager, BDTS of HKSTP). My project aimed to reduce the process time of workflow of IC Design Tools booking and billing.
After defined Current Value Stream Map, I used Kaizen Blitz to improve 3 processes. They are:
1. Data Transfer Process
2. Data Upload Process
3. Approval Invoice Process

During Kaizen Blitz, wastes were identified and eliminated. The results were summarized:
• Current VSM:
– Value Added Ratios: ~13%
• Future VSM
– Value Added Ratios: ~15% (Increased 2%)
• Lead time reduction:
– Reduced ~ 18%

My future plans on Lean project are:
• Introducing the VSM to other units
• Short Term Enhancement – Improve FMS with limited resource
• Long Term Enhancement – Integrate IT Systems (company-wide):
– For customer related process, CRM will be employed.
– For operation related process, ERP will be employed.

The forth speaker was Ms. Zen (Continuous Improvement Manager, Littlefuse Phils, Inc.). Her project topic was “Improvement of MOV Inventory Turns from 3.2 to 7.0”.

She summarized Lean Tools used in her project as below.
Value:
- Voice of the Customer
Value Stream:
- Value Stream Map
- Activity Process Map
Flow:
- Bottleneck Identification
- Visual Control
- Six Sigma
- Quality at the Source
- Smaller Batch Size
- Layout
Pull:
- Demand Pull vs Forecast Push
Perfection:
- Lean Simulation / Training

After improvement, the value added ratio was found to increase from 0.05% to 0.11%, WIP decreased, and Layout improved.
She said there were three points learned from the lesson:
1. Walking through the process revealed not only technical information, but also the people’s mindset.
2. Batch-and-queue mentality vs. lean thinking is a bigger war than I have thought!
3. Starting with quick wins excited the team but focus on the top 80% kept up the momentum.

The key success factors were identified to be “Teamwork” and “Focus on the Target”.


The last topic was TOC success story presented by Mr. Alert Kwok (Director, Harbona Packaging Co., Ltd.). Albert is also my classmate in EngD (MEEM, CityU).

He told his decisions made on implementing TOC project was within 5 minutes. It was because he has known TOC for 20 years and had the following reasons:
- Stock investment is very high
- Reliability on delivery is very low
- Order status is uncertain, etc.
He also explained why use TOC (Theory of Constraints).
- They need an integrate approach for management system with holistic strategy for competitive advantage
- About right is better than precisely wrong in his company culture
- Result-based consulting with low risk

Production improvements by using Simplified Drum-Buffer-Rope (SDBR) & Buffer Management (BM) were shown as follows:
1. Training on TOC mind-sets in the whole team
2. Plan the production is based on customers’ orders
3. Re-prioritize the orders without sub-optimization (Local efficiency)
4. Manage the material release according to TOC DBR way
5. Monitor the Raw Material according to TOC dynamic buffer management

He shared the lessons learnt to us as follows:
· Management commitment
· Mind-set training is the first priority
· Technical training is the second priority
· Persistent in TOC decision making mechanism to avoid shifting into old paradigm
· Use TOC terminology for communication as fresh air of working relationship to resolve day-to-day conflict


Henry presented a souvenir to Albert.

Mr. Mike Sheahan presented certificate to us.

Finally, all CLM graduates had taken a group photo.

The seminars were very successful on 18 Oct and 22 Nov 2008.
For more information, please visit http://www.iscea.hk/ .