Question

A healthcare institution uses the following process for getting special equipment used in the special care units of their hospitals. 1. A paper request for equipment is submitted, which takes 5 hours to prepare. 2. The paper request is sent on to the next department for review. The internal mail system is used which takes 24 hours for delivery. 3. The next department conducts a review of the request, as a double check. This takes 6 hours to complete. 4. The reviewed request is then sent to the next department (the Chief Financial Officer - CFO) via the internal mail system, which takes 24 hours for delivery. 5. The CFO looks over the request for anything odd and then signs it, whereby authorizing the budget to be spent on the request. This step is just for the CFO to sign off on the request and takes 1 hour. 6. The signed request goes to the next department via the internal mail system, which takes 24 hours for delivery. 7. At the analysis department, the request details are reviewed for technical accuracy and anything that seems out of the ordinary before committing to the design and eventual building of the equipment item. The department is so overwhelmed with work that the total amount of time to do their review takes 40 hours. It might be less if other requests didn't get in the way and pushed ahead of other "less important" request reviews. 8. The final analysis package goes the next department for action and takes 24 hours via the internal mail system. 9. At the design department, the team there takes the information from the request and the results of the analysis review to begin designing the equipment item. This process takes 40 hours to complete.

1. For this question, you will review a process, identify problem areas ( such as wastes, cycle time inefficiencies, etc), and suggest an improved process.

the document which describes the process steps in words and also includes a process map as a visual tool for understanding what's going on in each step. You will need to respond to the following three sub-questions:

A. Of the 9 process steps in the Process Improvement (Final Q 1) document, which specific steps in that process are experiencing lean wastes and/or process cycle time issues (please note, there is more than one step experiencing issues). In your response, name the process step, and/or the transfer interface between steps, and what waste(s) or cycle time issue is involved. Be sure to use standard lean/six sigma terminology that we used in the course when referring to any of the quality concepts; e.g., transportation waste when referring to situations involving a lot of moving around from one place to another. When writing about lean waste, this would be an excellent place for including your citation reference for question 1.

B. Which of the process steps you identified in part a do you believe could benefit from process improvement and why?

C. What changes would you institute in the process to improve the steps you cited in part b of this question and describe how those changes improve the process. Be specific about which process step(s) your improving and thoroughly describe the improvement to that step. [Note: This question ties to what you decided was important in part b question above.] Also, when answering how you would improve a given process step, assume you have an unlimited budget and personnel resources and you can do almost anything you want as long as it doesn't violate the laws of physics or the judicial system. Be cautious though because process improvement is designed to save time, money, and resources in doing the needed work. For example, automation is good, and also potentially expensive, so is it worth it for the improvement? - you will have to be the judge of that.

Answer 1

Answer :

Steps to improve a process as below-

1. Select the process- Select the process which we want to improve or which in the bottleneck process for the plant.

2. Establish the objective to achieve- Set the proper Objective like- improve the productivity, Reduce the rejection level etc.

3. Understand the current process. - Break down each process operation in very minuet information.

4. Measure the current state. – Measure the information in quantity like -%, PPM, Downtime %.

5. Analysis Data and develop the plan. – According analyse the data and develop the plan

6. Simplify the process. - Understand the process step and try to eliminate the unnecessary activity.

7. Implement change / Plan. - Implement he change and inform the stack holder for change.

8. Test the change and collect data. - Check the change for its benefits and collect data.

9. Standardize the process – After improvement established make the standardization by update the process document like work instruction, process sheet, control plan etc.

Answer a) :

We take on example of a manufacturing process plant.

Product line Operation 10 Opration 20 Operation 30 Operation 40 l 20. Packaging

Step 1- Improve the productivity and achieve new take time 78 sec for customer demand.

Step 2 – Set the objectives-

· Improve the Productivity by 20%.

· Improve the OEE( overall equipment efficiency) from 10 % to 80 %.

Step 3- Understand the Process and Step 4 Measure the data

Product line Operation 10 Opration 20 Operation 30 Operation 40 l 20. Packaging

45 40 201 0.00% Machining operation Cycle time- Machine Downtime Change over Rejection rate Inspection time Effective cycle time 0.10% 10 min 0.20% 10 sec Turning Opeation Cyde time Machine Downtime 0.10% Change over 15 min Rejection rate 0.20% Inspection time 15 ses Effective syde time 51 Gringding operation Cyde time Machine Downtime Change over Rejection rate Inspection time Effective syde time 72 0.10% 10 min 5.00% 20 sec 1001 Packaging Cyde time Machine Downtime Change over Rejection rate Inspection time Effective syde time 0.00% 2 sec 22

Step 5 – Analyse the data and develop the plan

When we put the data into the line balancing graph, we identify the bottleneck operation of the process in grinding operation

100.00 $8.031.00 120.00 100.00 80.00 50.00 40.00 20.00 0.00 22.00 Work Content/Part REF: Takt Time machine Operation Tuming operation Packaging uogeado upuu

Waste available in grinding Operation -

· Defect – defect rate is high.

· Down time of process in high.

· Non value add time -Inspection time is high.

· Non value add time -100 % Inspection. As defect rate is high.

Action Plan-

· Project 1- Project given to maintenance team to improve the Uptime of grinding process.

· Project 2- Manufacturing team to reduce the rejection rate.

· Project 3- Quality – reduce inspection by introduce in process inspection.

In process inspection – in this process part check during process itself in machine, one additional gauge integrates with machine.by this out side 100 % inspection we can eliminate.

Answer b) :

We step 5 of process improvement we identify the 3 projects by we can reduce the waste of process and achieve the required take time of process.

Answer c) :

In step 6 and Step 7 – we do the require change in process to reduce the process waste.

The improvement action points come from project 1 and project 2 need to implement in this step.

Incorporate the in-process inspection in grinding operation. By this we can reduce unnecessary inspection

In step 8 – Test the improvement of process and verify for some time.

By putting action plan the grinding process cycle time reduce from the take time, so the process can capable to achieve new set targets.

Step 9 – Standardize the process-

Need to update the process control plan according to the project outcome,

Update the work instruction where applicable.

Recognize the Team for their effort.