Six Sigma Training with Smallpeice Enterprises

Companies who do not address product design in their quest for manufacturing improvement, soon realise that the goal of Six Sigma capability is an objective that might not be realised with process optimisation alone. Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) is a rigorous approach in product and service design where customer requirements are delivered by products that are manufactured by processes that are fully understood and optimised.

The DFSS methodology starts with the definition of customer requirements from which design and process critical characteristics are identified and an understanding of how their variability impacts on product specification is determined.

The DFSS toolkit includes techniques that focus on product simplification by driving down part count, fastener count and the number of process steps. This programme should be attended in conjunction with the Six Sigma Green Belt programme to provide a comprehensive DFSS skillset.

QUALITY FUNCTION DEPLOYMENT

Capturing the “Voice of the Customer”

Producing a Product Design Specification

Critical characteristic management

Customer Focus: Customer specification /
Develop customer requirements /
Establish “Voice of the Customer” /
Categorise and prioritise requirements /
Competitor performance rating

Technical Focus: Establish technical characteristics /
Functional analysis / Direction of technical improvement / Correlation matrix / Customer /
technical interaction / Prioritisation of technical characteristics /
Establish preliminary target / Competitor technical benchmarking

Results Interpretation: Analyse & diagnose matrix / Finalise technical targets / Identify characteristics for further study

Further QFD Phases: Design deployment / Process planning / Production control

Managing QFD: Team selection & implementation / Links with other design tools & techniques

DESIGN FMEA

Failure Mode Identification

Risk assessment

Risk control

Analysis Set-up: Objective setting / Work plan development / Document Control

Identification: Product Function Development / Interface Identification /
Failure Mode Capture

Failure Mode Assessment: Effects of failure identification / Effects severity rating / Causes of failure identification / Causes occurence rating /
Design control identification / Control detection rating / RPN calculation

Failure Mode Control: Risk prioritisation / Corrective actions /
Improvement verification

FMEA Management: Team composition & set-up / Links with other FMEA types / Document control / Continuous improvement

CONCEPT GENERATION & SELECTION

Using creativity techniques

Developing effective evaluation criteria

Select concepts

Requirement Definition: Incorporating output from QFD /
Critical to Quality characteristics / Product performance targets

Concept Generation: Functional Analysis / Bill of Functions / Creativity techniques / TRIZ / Alternative concept solutions

Criteria Definition: Developing criteria set / QFD output / System FMEA output

Concept Selection: Basic selection methods / Weighting & Rating /
Controlled Convergence

VALUE ENGINEERING

Identify poor value

Design improvement

Product cost profile

Concept of Value: Causes of inefficient design / The “hardware fix” / Value types / Application areas / Product Life Cycle

Methodology: Where can VE be successfully applied ? / Gather relevant information / Process the information / Generate new ideas /
Ideas selection What needs to be done / Go and do it

Managing Value: Application issues / Value management of processes & systems / Team composition / Creating value awareness

DESIGN FOR MANUFACTURE & ASSEMBLY

Product configuration issues

Categorising manufacturing difficulties

Design & Part Count analysis

Analysis Set-up: Build sequence / Product configuration

Difficulty Analysis: Handling analysis / Insertion analysis / Total time calculation

Part Count: Separate part justification / Minimum part count analysis

Design Efficiency: Efficiency calculation / Efficiency interpretation

Re-design: Capturing improvement ideas/ Developing a re-design / Re-design analysis

Improvement Verification: Improvement economics: Improvement approval

TOLERANCE OPTIMISATION

Considering tolerancing & types

Cost implications of poor tolerances

Understanding how tolerances should be treated

Basic considerations: What is the correct size & effect of a tolerance? /
What is a concession ?

Types of tolerances: Worst case / Root Sum Squared (RSS) / Process tolerances / Geometrical tolerances

Manufacturing considerations: The role of good communication /
Use of computer systems

Tolerance Analysis / Allocation Solving problems using: Worst Case tolerances or Statistical (RSS) tolerances

GD&T: The symbols / Maximum material condition / Zero tolerancing

RELIABILITY

The concept of reliability

Reliability measurement & optimisation

Measurement System Analysis: Measures of Location (Bias, Stability, Linearity) / Measures of Spread (Repeatability, Reproducibility)

Gauge R&R Studies: Repeatability & Reproducibility / Measurement System Variation / Part-to-Part Variation & Total Process Variation

Measurement System Assessment: Resolution of Measuring Equipment / Discrimination Guidelines / Number of Distinct Data Categories

Product Failure Patterns: Bathtub Model / Failure Modelling /
Pattern recognition software

Product Reliability Management: System reliability models / Test plan design

DESIGN OF EXPERIMENTS

Key objectives of an experiment

Types of DoE

Experimental analysis & refinement

DoE Objectives: Key objectives of an experiment / Knowledge gained from DoE

Full Factorial Experiments: Planning & setting up an experiment /
Full factorial designs / Design choices / Designing an experiment

with Minitab / Replication & randomisation / Conducting an experiment

Analysis, Refinement & Optimisation: Analysing an experiment /
Fitting & checking the model / Visualising the results /

Optimising the settings / Confirmation runs & reasons for failure

Further Techniques: Fractional factorial designs / Non-linear responses /
Taguchi's designs