Process Industry, Lean and Six Sigma

Lean manufacturing basically developed out of discrete manufacturing with the goal of making it more continuous. This has resulted in continuous manufacturing (aka process industry) being challenged in how to look at their continuous flow as discrete flow so it can be more continuous!

While this seems like a circular argument, the brain contortions need to be focused on determining what is batch size in the process industry. Whereas the downstream packaging forces the nomenclature of a batch based on either a unit of time's production (IE one day) or a switchover of packaging material, this is often not the same batch size as the upstream, continuous process.

For many years now, batch sizes have been getting larger to fit "economies of scale", thus demanding that the required manufacturing equipment be larger and more powerful. In some companies, a batch could be considered to be anything produced in one year between annual overhauls or at least from one major upset to the next. Thus the true limiting step in batch processes is the batch size. And most companies feel they cannot change this as a lot of equipment capital and intellectual capital have been invested in the process.

There are several different ways a company can tackle continuous improvement under these circumstances and two popular methods are Six Sigma and Lean. Generally, Six Sigma is focused on the process itself; how to optimize process conditions, how to identify process upsets faster and how to control the process. It is also used in determining reasons for process upsets, setting up experiments for new technology or new products for the process. Lean is often used on the support systems; reducing changeover time when it does occur, improving maintenance through 5S and TPM, visual management, scheduling, capital project process and downstream in packaging and warehousing.

Unfortunately, in this age of flexibility, fluctuating demand and a more customer-focused agenda, true savings will not be made until the issue of batch size is dealt with. It is only from blending aspects of Lean and Six Sigma though, that the batch size will be able to be reduced in an optimal manner. You need to know how to measure the product quality, you need to know when your process is producing defects and you need to know how to be effective in your changes. More importantly, you need to take the time to make the financial calculations based on life cycle analysis and the changing markets to determine where your customer needs the batch size to be.

Learn how to improve your changeover times and to get your products to first grade as quickly as possible and reduce variation and your payback time for smaller tanks, pumps, filtration units, ovens etc will be short and well worth it. And your customer will be happier too!

Finding creativity within standardization

As long as I have been practicing process optimization - and that has been many years- I have always struggled with staying true to my creative side while standardizing the processes I use. The two seem to be at odds with each other and I know many others struggle with it too. In fact, this perception can be one of the critical barriers to buy-in for many.

Once I started to look at standardization differently, I felt a tremendous release, as suddenly I was able to balance both aspects of my own personality. How did I do that? Well, I started to look at standardization as a backbone and I also realized it was a great communication tool.

As a backbone:
When standardizing, you need to find the happy medium where enough detail is given to reduce error and waste but enough lee way is there to allow adaptation to individual physical needs and situations.
Consider the human skeleton and internal organs. Each of us is built the same way, under the same guiding principles, but we are all different. We all have to do the same basic functions but over time, we have used our creativity and improved on those processes and have shared these learnings.

For example - eating:
We have hands, arms, mouths, teeth, tongue etc to help us get food, put it in our mouths, digest it and send the right nutrients to our organs and the rest of our body. That is our standardized process. We have learned that tools can make eating much easier. So now, most people use forks, spoons and knives to get the food to us faster, with less dirt and contamination and less waste, as well as to make the portions easier for our teeth to masticate and our body to digest. The process of eating was standardized, creativity improved it.

As a communication tool:

If the person who invented the knife had never shared their idea with someone, where would we be today? We knew the requirements of process and the basics steps to it - grab food, try and make it small enough to fit in the mouth and chew. Someone found out that you can use a sharp tool to make the pieces smaller and it was easier to chew, you choked less and you could even spear the piece with the same tool. The person shared the tool, others standardized the use of it and then others used their creativity to improve the knife and innovate, using the knife for different processes.

So, standardizing a process allows the brain space and time to free itself to think about ways to improve the process, do things differently, find links and connections between disparate acts and in general, allow more creativity and more innovation.