Today’s plastics industry is a competitive landscape. Processors are continually looking for innovative ways to navigate it and remain profitable, all the while trying to earn new business for the future. This requires a need for continuous improvement, to consistently be able to offer the best price, delivering the best products and having solid customer service and systems in place to back it up.
One of the ways to accomplish this is by engaging employees in a Lean Six Sigma training and certification program. The principles, carried out across a company, are eliminating the eight common forms of waste and reducing variation in processes.
Employees undergo extensive training in the tools and methodologies to do so. The first phase is achieving a Green Belt certification, which can eventually lead further to Black Belt certification. Companies with this emphasis and a continuous improvement culture in place encourage or even require employees to complete the initial phase. In addition to the training, it requires successfully completing a capstone project prior to earning certification.
For aspiring Green Belts, this step presents one of the most common challenges: finding the right project to take on, followed by the question of “where do I start?” Keep in mind; to be successful the project needs to deliver meaningful and measurable results, within a relatively short, defined period of time. It also needs to be the right project at the right time, addressing the pain, with a clear definition of the improvement activity or problem to solve. Often this requires looking thoroughly for better ways of doing things. Once several potential projects are identified, use the Lean Six Sigma tools & methodology to select the opportunity that ultimately presents itself at the top of the list, by having the greatest positive impact.
Begin by seeing what the current state of your operations, methods and procedures are today. While doing so, ask around for input from others involved across all functions in the process. This is a beneficial step, the beginning of forming your project team. Together, determine and define where the pain points are, specific to your operations. Utilize existing or generate new data to further analyze the need. Take note the details of the application, related to the resources, process, tooling and materials being used or consumed, along with any known or identified gaps in the current process. Next up, what is the root cause? Once you’ve collaborated and determined this, it’s time to come up with a proposed solution. Make a plan and act upon it, to implement. Then measure again for any improvement results, make adjustments as necessary.
Finally for any project to have continued measured success, it is important to have defined procedures and methods in place, and possibly other accompanying tools, surrounding it to be effective. All together the progress made will need to be fortified with a control measure, to withstand the test of time and equally important the different personnel involved over time.
Using this approach along with the resources and tools available within your company’s Lean Six Sigma program, will ensure your project is on a path to success, earning you a Green Belt certification.
Learn about the importance of implementing proper purging procedures by downloading this free industry guide.
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