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Lean Six Sigma in the Fertilizer Industry

Fertilizer is used around the world to grow crops and other plants. Lean and Six Sigma methodologies help to improve production processes and reduce waste. We’ll look at case studies from Brazil, Indonesia, and India and finish with a video of how organic fertilizer is made. Lean Manufacturing Applied to Liquid Fertilizer Manufacturing: Brazil In [...]

2022-03-26T10:11:35-06:00By |0 Comments

Lean Six Sigma in the Insurance Industry

The insurance industry is an excellent example of non-manufacturing where Lean and Six Sigma are applied for process improvement and waste reduction. We’ll look at four case studies from Germany, India, Northern Ireland, and Brazil.   Lean and Six Sigma Applied to a Large Insurance Company: Germany   In a paper titled “A Lean Six [...]

LSS in the Publishing and Printing Industries

Printing and publishing are the result of a production process. As a result, Lean and Six Sigma are appropriate methodologies to achieve improvement. We’ll look at a Malaysian case study of applying Lean and Six Sigma in printing. Then we’ll finish with two more general articles: one on Lean Six Sigma generic project definitions in [...]

First Time Yield and Rolled Throughput Yield

First Time Yield and Rolled Throughput Yield are two important standard yield metrics for processes.  First Time Yield (FTY):  The ratio of the number of good “units” coming out of the process to the number of “units” going in. Rolled Throughput Yield (RTY): The probability that the process produces a good “unit” the first time [...]

Goods to Person Automation

Goods to Person (also known as Goods to Man) technology affords efficiency, speed, and accuracy from order picking to shipping. How is this done in large warehouse distribution centers? The Goods to Person Concept:  “The goods to person concept is straightforward – associates stay in one location while the items to be picked and packed [...]

The Between/Within Chart

When constructing control charts with subgroups, there are two sources of variation: between subgroups and within subgroups. Standard Shewhart Xbar-R or S charts assume that the within subgroup variation is dominant. But that is not always the case. When that assumption is violated, what should be done? In an earlier blog, we discussed control chart [...]

Bootstrap Resampling

Bootstrap Resampling takes an initial sample and randomly samples from that repeatedly with replacement. One then uses the data from the resamples to estimate various statistics. Bootstrap Resampling should be in your statistical toolkit. We will explore the Bootstrap approach from various sources. First, Mike Marin, Professor at the University of British Columbia clearly explains [...]

Lean in the Warehouse

Warehouses are everywhere. How are some companies using Lean in their warehouses? We will look at four: INFILCO Ryder United Electric Supply Regal Plastics And finish with a 3 minute virtual tour of a Lean warehouse.  INFILCO INFILCO Degremont’s 3W Warehouse applied Lean management principles using A3 Problem-solving, 5S, and visual controls. Their improvement project [...]

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