In my (too many) decades of manufacturing engineering work, I've had 6S training, exposure, and applications in a variety of forms. I'm an equally strong advocate and harsh critic. When I was first shown this stuff, it was called "World Class Manufacturing" or something like that...it was the 80's and Japanese Mfg methods were taking their toll on sloppy US automotive quality and pathetic management methods. Nowadays it is much more formalized as a "12-step" or "10-step" methodology. Over the years, I've formed some controversial opinions about it:
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[li]6S is a fabulously powerful analytical tool to help isolate the main contributor in the pareto chart of problem causes.[/li]
[li]Popularity of 6S comes and goes with the economic cycle. When companies are "sharpening their tools when it's raining," then 6S is the latest short-sighted MBA-doink quick-fix management fad. When they're "making hay while the sun is shining," then 6S advocates are considered bothersome pariahs.[/li]
[li]Most trainings of rigorous 6S is too far advanced mathematically for most folks to handle. It's a rare duck of an engineer that doesn't devote all their energies to surviving & passing an engineering curriculum without successfully avoiding any and all statistics classes. The formal 6S training that I have suffered through assumed one had Master's level credentials in Applied Statistics. How in the world am I supposed to know that I should be analyzing the
variances of a data stream rather than the
standard deviation ? You're kidding, right?[/li]
[li]The most recent 6S training opened my eyes as to how it can or should be applied in a manufacturing environment. The most recent training was MINITAB-centric and took the course of action to identify ALL root cause contributors of a problem at one time. This was assumed to be a 12-step process that was a planned 4-6 month process before results were released. In my experience, this is not acceptable in a fast-paced manufacturing operation. Another approach in which I was trained (and believe in) is the Shainin 6S method. That method is rigorous 6S, but packaged in a way that reduces the amount of hard math and uses more simple tests and charts. This makes it much more adaptable by shop-floor personnel. Also it's philosophy is to seek & identify the largest root cause contributor in the pareto of causes, allowing the organization to concentrate it's efforts within available workload. Then start over again and seek the next contributor. It follows the
continuous improvement philosophy and is very effective.[/li]
[li]6S doesn't solve problems. It identifies root causes. A 6S project can crash and burn massively because the investigator team is still unable to deploy an effective solution, or management will not release the funds to fix it. Everybody loses and 6S is branded as non-effective.[/li]
[li]I'm sure there are some good ones, there MUST be. But too many 6S consultants are vultures & maggots feasting on the twin rotting corpses of corporate management leadership Ability & Intelligence, and they're getting fat doing it.[/li]
[li]The 6S "Belt" culture is corrupt and meaningless. White, Green, Black, Master Black...sheesh. It doesn't mean a thing when I can purchase "certification" for $99 online.[/li]
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Lean manufacturing is just something that makes good sense to me. There is a wealth of material available to learn the thought processes and methods. Try lean.org for some leaning materials as a start. It ain't rocket science, just practical application of common sense to most any type of "operations" environment. But there are still plenty of self-proclaimed "Lean Experts" out there who will gladly take your money and blind you with A Flash Of The Obvious.
TygerDawg
Blue Technik LLC
Virtuoso Robotics Engineering
