The tools practiced in this workshop are:

Writing effective problem & mission statements

Situation:

The catapult department uses catapults to conveys materials (round balls) from Point A to Point B for subsequent processing. The goal is to convey the materials to the target location within specified limits. Hence, the process output for this operation is distance traveled (y, measured in meters). Any material conveyed to a distance outside the specification limits is considered to be defective or rejected.

The average daily production is 75 transported balls per day. However, the catapult department is not achieving the required distance traveled 100% of the time. In fact, the plant manager has seen a 15% increase in rework over the past five months.

The department manager, who is never around to observe the process, says that the operator is the cause. He said that if he had more money to hire better operators the problem would be solved.

One operator says that this problem is not new. In fact, they were never able to meet the old specifications that were not as tight as the new specifications imposed by the new customer. If the specifications were widened the problem would go away.

The maintenance department supervisor says the machines are worn out. Running 24/7 has made it almost impossible to properly maintain the machines. More machines are needed to solve the problem.

The financial officer says that it costs the company $20 per defect to rework it internally.

Based on their initial investigation, the Lean Six Sigma team believes this problem can be solved within the next 6 months.

Activities:

Write a problem & mission statement (based on information above and/or from Workshop 2).

Show how you calculated the project's estimated annual savings.

Note: Like is often the case in the real world when youre just starting a Lean Six Sigma project, not all the information you would like to have is available; hence, simply do the best you can with the information that's available to you.

Quality Improvement in Project Management