Six Sigma Blog

Reduce Energy Consumption The high school has experience >1,100 kWh in peak energy intervals and consuming as much as 500 kWh during “off hours.” Both factors are leading to high energy costs and low energy star scores. The Energy Star rating in 2016 was 55. The focus of the project was off hours energy consumption, […]

Some of the most intimidating and difficult projects are those that are totally dependent on human attention for success. It is much easier to change a dial on a machine than rely on people to read and enter data accurately. Some may look at these types of projects and say there is no control. Therefore, […]

The Ohio Development Services Agency has announced a second year of funding for the Ohio Incumbent Worker Training Voucher Program. This funding ($27 million) will be for training done between August 1, 2013 and June 30, 2014. We have helped companies with the registration process and trained employees in various modules of employee improvement. Applications […]

Six Sigma uses belt terminology, very similar to Karate. The color of the belt represents a level of expertise. The requirements to accomplish a certification vary across the industry. To this writer’s disappointment, requirements have softened over the years in order to satisfy the demand for quick certification. That is a topic for another day. The […]

Six Sigma saved this company $19,546! This project focused on the scrap being generated on Line 001, which produces tubing. The operation is staffed with two shifts, fives days per week. Scrap reporting indicated the annual scrap being generated was $50,000. This translates to 7.3% of good footage produced. The goal was to reduce the amount of […]

A reduction in scrap production saved this company $96,000 Manifolds are produced with two manufacturing cells.  The overall average scrap rate of 9.06% for both cells was unacceptably high.  Through the use of Pareto charts the molding operation was identified as the primary contributor to scrap. The ability of the inspectors to identify visual defects […]

Savings of $78,000 the first year! Employees can enroll for their retirement benefits online. The online enrollment process is used to sign up participants for accessing to their retirement accounts. It has been an ineffective process since implementation in May, 2000.  The abandonment rate is too high, and an analysis of the problem was undertaken, […]

Problem:  A manufacturer did not understand what contributed to the quantity of product shipped each day.  They did a lot of work to keep production moving and reduce downtime, but it never seemed to impact their ability to ship more units Causes 165 variables were tracked daily including: Downtime Defects per unit Model mix production […]

Economic impact of over $184,000! Since the 2001 Plant Expansion the throughput of Furnace #4 has been less than the design Operating Equipment Efficiency of 295,140,698 pounds of propane feed.  In 2004 the furnace operated 304 of 344 operating days at 69.8% of design. Total throughput for the 2004 calendar year was 205,952,599 pounds of […]

A Total of $48,000 in savings! Problem: There has been significant variability in the electric bill for a fiberglass component manufacturer. There have been large increases even when production was low. The average electric bill is $3,767, with an average usage each month of 17,978 kwh. Causes Inefficient operation of the air compressor Lighting was […]