Design For Six Sigma

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Introduction:

In today’s competitive environment, organizations are finding out different methods and approaches that can give them an edge over their competitors and launching a new product with some good features that are demanded by customers is always considered a good approach to lead the market. The most critical aspect in gaining competitive advantage in the market is to understand the voice of customer and providing them with a product that exactly meet their demands. In this case, organizations are trying to meet those demands accurately but at the same time minimizing costs and maintaining good quality to achieve long term results. Design for Six Sigma and New product development are the approaches that deal in developing new processes and products where design for six sigma deals with both the development of a new process and product and New product development is only limited to product development. The objective of this study is to:

Understand the concept of DFSS and NPD.

Analyze the Advantages and disadvantages of both the approaches.

Integrate the concept and framework of both the approaches.

Design for Six Sigma:

Design for six sigma is defined by Brue and Launsby (2003) as "an approach to designing new products, services and different processes considering the customer requirements and improve the quality and reliability, reduce time and increase financial gains" (Chung and Hsu 2010). According to Shahin (2008) Design for six sigma is a statistical and analytical approach and use different statistical tools to design a new product or process that meets the six sigma level and it drives down the costs associated to the process and meets customer expectations and requirements (Chung and Hsu 2010). Design for Six sigma focuses more on prevention rather than improvement and this approach actually enables organization to do it right from the beginning phase. This approach helps organizations to meet customer requirements, increase quality and reduce cost increasing profitability (Cavanagh et all 2005).

DMADV:

The approach or method used for Design for Six Sigma is called as DMADV and it stands for Define, Measure, Analyze, Design and Verify. Each one of them is explained as follows:

Define:

This is the first phase of DFSS and in this phase organizations develop a project plan and charter and identify different risks associated with it (Johnson et all 2006).

Measure:

The second phase of the DFSS is to identify the target market and identify the customer requirements and different tools can be used to measure them for example Kano survey can be done and then identification of critical to quality characteristics is made ( Johnson et all 2006).

Analyze:

In this phase of DFSS different processes are analyzed such as design and risk and the value being added to the overall process is analyzed in this step (Cavanagh et all 2005).

Design:

This phase is associated with designing the best suitable process that meets all the CTQ’s and actually this is the process in which flesh is added to the bones of conceptual proposals ( Cavanagh et all 2005) and (Johnson et all 2006).

Verify:

Planning different controls and some added optimization and verifying is done in this phase of DFSS (Cavanagh et all 2005).

New Product Development:

New development process can be defined as "a series of standardized development phases that help organizations and enable them to develop and introduce new products in less time and less cost" (Viale 1998).

Stage Gate Process:

It is an approach to make the new product development process more effective efficient and it is a mixture of conceptual and operational tools. Each stage is associated with a gate and this gate functions as a quality control check in order to ensure the right product being made. The stage next to each preceding stage is expensive and there is senior management as gate keepers to observe the process and make decisions regarding the go/kill of the project (Cooper 1990). The stages that are involved in a stage gate process usually start with an idea generation followed by first gate of screening that idea. The preliminary assessment is carried out and is then followed by building a business case in which VOC is captured and then development of product along with marketing and operational tools is carried out in stage 3. Stage 4 is the validation and testing of the product followed by commercialization and post commercialization review (Cooper 1990).

Compare and Contrast DFSS and NPD:

Focus On Customers:

Both the approaches whether it is DFSS or NPD, they both focus on customer requirements and identify the needs of the customers. Design for six sigma identifies VOC in its Measure phase of DMADV (Johnson et all 2006) and NPD builds a business case to identify customer requirements (Cooper 1991).

Communication:

One of the advantages of Design for six sigma is that it improves the communication across different functions of the organization (Peuss 2013) and in the modern NPD that follows the stage gate process, the communication across different functions is emphasized as projects are carried out in parallel (Cooper 1990).

Reduced Elapsed times:

In NPD, most of the activities are now carried out in parallel rather than in sequential form, so the elapsed time of the process is reduced hence speeding up the product to the market (Cooper 1990). Design for six sigma emphasizes on doing it right for the first time avoids all kind of wastes and rework and hence the time to market is reduced (Johnson et all 2006) and ( El-haik 2003).

Improved Quality:

Focusing on the NPD process (stage gate) there are five gates to ensure quality control of the overall process hence the focus on quality is quiet visible in the NPD process resulting in improved quality of the overall product (Cooper 1991). The advantage of DFSS is similar as by meeting six sigma level and reducing defects and variations in the process results in the better quality products which are reliable and durable (Cavanagh et all 2005).

Reduced Cost:

The design for six sigma has an advantage of reducing the overall cost of the life cycle and eliminates all the waste from the process (Peuss 2013). In the NPD process, if there is any failure then it is detected quiet earlier in the process hence reducing the extensive rework or redesign ultimately reducing cost (Cooper 1990).

Focus On Risk Management:

Design for six sigma focuses on the risk management in the very early phase of its deployment. In the define phase of the DMADV the overall risk management plan is made and risk associated with the project are identified and hence they are either mitigated or some contingency plans are made (Mader 2002). In the NPD, there is no as such identification of the risk in the early phase of the process but there is a constant review and assessment at each gate of the process (Cooper 1990).

Innovation and Creativity:

Design for Six sigma enhances the overall design process and bring innovative design processes and Mader (2003) stated the role of DFSS in enhancing new design processes bring innovation to the new products (Chung et all 2008). Whereas the NPD process does not increase the innovation and creativity of the design process and the product (Cooper 1991).

Integration of NPD (Stage Gate Process) and DFSS (DMADV):

Stage Gate process DMADV

Stage 1Preliminary assessment Define

Stage 2 Business case: Measure

Stage 3 Development: Analyze

Stage 4 Validation and testing: Design

Stage 5 Launch Verify

The above diagram shows the relation between the Stage gate process and DMADV. The first stage of preliminary assessment is the one in which market and technical assessment is done and assessment of feasibility of project is done in terms of cost and manufacturability (Cooper 1990). Similarly in Define phase of DMADV the overall project plan is made and a project charter is made mentioning the scope of the project and the resources required to carry out the project and a document control system is prepared (El- Haik 2003) and (Johnson et all 2006). An additional phase being observed in Define phase of DMADV is the identification of risk in the very early phase and making plans to mitigate the risk or make contingency plans to avoid that risk. Methods like brainstorming are used to identify the risks and it is then prioritized by scoring and then mitigating actions are identified for high scoring risks (PEUSS 2013). This risk assessment could be an additional feature in the early stage of Stage gate process.

The next stage of stage gate process is to build a business case and in this stage the customer’s needs and requirements are considered and some market research surveys are carried out to understand the customer requirements along with competitive analysis (cooper 1990). In the Measure phase of DMADV a similar objective is accomplished by collecting data on customer needs and requirements and customer segmentation is done and then this VOC is understood and then this is translated into some Critical to quality characteristics and by critical to quality characteristics, it means the minimum characteristics to meet the customer needs. Tools like QFD (quality function deployment) are used (Johnson et all 2006). In both the cases that is Stage 2 of Stage gate process and Measure phase of DMADV, there is a comparison between the process capability and customer requirements but more statistical tools such as SPC and Capability analysis are used is DFSS to ensure that processes are capable of meeting those needs (Peuss 2013). Integrating more statistical tools of DMADV can ensure better understanding of customer needs and wants in developing the business case of stage gate process.

The stage 3 of stage gate process is Development and in this stage the analysis of capability of organization is done in terms of financial analysis and detailed testing of the development of product is done along with the development of marketing and operational plans (Cooper 1990). The stage 3 of stage gate process integrates with the Analyze and Design phase of the DMADV where in Analyze phase different functions are prioritized and reviews are made on concepts and designs (Peuss 2013).

The stage 4 of the stage gate process integrates with the Verify phase of the DMADV approach as in the Validation and testing stage of stage gate process the testing of the product is done in different aspects some prototyping tests are conducted and then pilot tests are done in order to ensure the product best suits the customer requirements and market pretests are conducted (Cooper 1990). Similar is the case in Verify phase of the DMADV in which prototype is made and then pilot tests are conducted on that prototype and reviews are made to ensure that the process is meeting the objectives and then the project is Closed (El-Haik 2003). The next stage of stage gate process is commercialization in which product is launched and some post launch reviews are conducted where in DMADV there is transferring of lessons learned from the project.

The whole process of stag gate is accompanied by gates in order to do reviews and do quality control check (Cooper 1990) and similar is the role played by milestones and toll gates in DMADV approach to do reviews on the process and ensure that the process meets the objectives (Peuss 2013).

Advantages of Integration of DFSS and NPD:

Design for six sigma is an approach of making robust and standardized products, processes and services that meet customer requirements and reach six sigma levels. Integration of design for six sigma to new product development process can be quiet beneficial in terms of reducing time to market the product and decrease the chances of changing different designs and making more prototypes. Design for six sigma is an approach of doing it right for the first time and hence (Chung et all 2008) referred to the above statement that after having an in depth understanding of customer requirements and operating processes at six sigma levels, costs will be reduced associated to the product life cycle and less re work and re design would be needed. Design for six sigma approach basically works on identifying innovative designs and enhances the overall design process and even Mader (2003) said that design for six sigma improves the new product development by enhanced design processes using the statistical tools and standardized approach (Chung et all 2008).

Integration of both the approaches would actually enable organizations to make some good quality and reliable products and Banuelas (2002) supported the integration of DFSS and NPD and said that the integration of both would enhance the overall efficiency of the process and would make the products that will best meet the customer requirements (Chung and Hsu 2010).

Conclusion:

After understanding the concept and framework of design for six sigma and New product development and the similarity in terms of their advantages and disadvantages to the organization made it quiet visible that both the approaches almost work in a same fashion and they complement each other at different stages. The integration of design for six sigma and new product development is possible and can be implemented together to enhance the overall efficiency of the process and come out with some good marketable products.

Introduction:

Organizations tend to improve their processes in terms of their effectiveness and efficiency and hence adopt different tools and techniques to gain maximum benefits and reduce the chances of risk and failures in the process. The collaboration of different engineering tools and techniques often exhibit better results as compared to when implemented in isolation. Therefore different organizations try a blend of approaches and techniques to come out with extra ordinary results in terms of quality, cost, reliability, time and effectiveness. The objective of this study is to:

Understand where design for X fits in the DFSS

Analyze different design aspects and integrate them within DFSS

Understand the working and implementation of tools in DFX

Concurrent Engineering:

Concurrent engineering is a methodology which focuses on carrying out the activities in a parallel manner rather than sequential pattern. All the activities in a process are integrated and interlinked to get the benefits like reduction in time and increased speed to market (Dourado et all 2011). According to Chen (2007) concurrent engineering has made a significance contribution in identifying cross functional teams in the process and by following this cross functional approach, many organizations have gained benefit in terms of time, quality and cost (Dourado et all 2011).

Design for X:

Design for X is an approach to best implement concurrent engineering and can be applied in product development. This approach benefits the process by reducing time, enhancing quality and decreasing cost (Huang and Mak 1997). This approach uses the concurrent design concepts and increases the productivity, quality and efficiency of the process and decrease the life cycle cost (Maskell 1991).

Design For X in the Context of DFSS:

A general framework to implement this approach is divided into seven steps and the first step is to analyze the requirements from functional, operational and flexibility point of view and customer needs are identified. If observed in the design for six sigma approach the first step is the define phase in which the business plan and project charter is made identifying different level of functional and process capabilities and then in the Measure phase of the DFSS, the customer voice is captured (Johnson et all 2006). In DFX, this is followed by modelling the product analysis in which Bills of material are formed and then the third step is modelling of the process analysis. In DFSS the third phase is the Analyze phase in which the process is analyzed and different value adding activities are analyzed. In DFX, the next step is taken in which different performance measures are selected and data is collected using DFX manuals and then using DFX worksheets, the tool is verified and identifying step of Designing and verifying the product is carried out in DFSS (Huang and Mak 1997) and (Johnson et all 2006).

Design for X is an approach that is used to implement concurrent engineering methodology and this approach is used in the manufacturing process and detailed design process. By implementing design for X, organizations can achieve better quality and less life cycle cost and less time. Different tools of this approach can be used at different stages in design for six sigma and can enhance the overall process efficiency. Design for X applying in the earlier stages of design process and DFSS would make better results more easily (Yang and El-Haik 2003).

Tools to be implemented in DFSS:

Different tools from the approach "DFX" and "Concurrent engineering" can be applied in design for six sigma and can make the over all process more effective.

Design for Manufacture and Assembly:

Design for Manufacture and assembly is one aspect of design for X and the benefit of using this design is that it reduces the manufacturing cost by reducing the assembly parts required for manufacturing and results into a simple and reliable design. As design for Six sigma is all about designing it right for the very first time to ignore all the waste and rework to redesign it, this aspect of design for X can actually enable better implementation of DFSS. As the early this approach is considered, the better it would be to avoid different waste (Peuss 2013).

Design for Manufacture and assembly enables organizations to remove waste and even enables them to identify the characteristics of the product that are adding value to the product hence it actually enables organizations to determine some of the CTQ’s (Critical to quality) characteristics of the product(Huang 1996). Design for Manufacturability and Assembly can be used in the Measure phase of design for Six sigma while determining the CTQ’s and comparing them to the business process capabilities. This design fits in the Design phase and the Verify phase of design for six sigma as well and is explained as follows:

Poka-yoke:

The technique that is used in this design for Manufacture and Assembly is Poka-yoke and this is a Japanese term which means error proofing. These errors may occur by human mistakes at the time of manufacturing and assembly(Huang 1996). This approach works on three principles of shutdown, control and warning and as mentioned by Burlikowska and Szewieczek (2009) that the shutdown phase is about not doing it and stopping the process where in the control phase of the technology necessary adjustments are made and in the warning method, it is estimated whether to accept or reject a product. The benefit of this technique in Design for Six sigma is that it enables the organizations to understand the problem earlier and avoid greater losses and production continues (Burlikowska and Szewieczek 2009).

Design for Reliability:

This design aspect of design for X ensures the measurement of reliability factor of a product. By reliability, it means that a particular product would perform its function for the particular period of time if operated under specific conditions (Huang 1996). Design for reliability actually identifies the reasons of failure in the product and adopts different techniques to resolve those failures and make such changes that those problems may not arise. Failure can occur because of human errors or some technical problems or it may occur due to improper design and environmental factors. Design for Reliability can fit in the Design and Verify Phase of DFSS where all the testing of the prototype is actually done to ensure that it best meets the specific requirements and conditions. There are different tools used for Design for reliability and FMECA (Failure mode-effect and criticality analysis), FTA (Fault tree analysis) and fishbone diagram are some examples (peuss 2013).

FMECA:

This technique is basically used to identify the problems or errors in the product can affect customer’s expectation regarding the performance and quality of a product. Using this tool would benefit the organization in terms of improved communication between the contractor and the supplier and resulting in improved quality and the overall process would ensure that precautionary measures are being taken care of. The design for six sigma approach can use this tool in determining the cause of failure and this tool needs a pre work in which a process flow diagram is used and then the all potential failure modes are identified and listed which are then rationalized against the function and then their effect and cause is described which is then critically assessed and corrective actions are taken and those actions are standardized (Peuss 2013).

FTA:

The only difference between the FMECA and FTA is that the earlier is used to detect failures in the overall product where as the FTA is used to identify and correct the failure modes in the part of the product (peuss 2013). This tool works as a combination of some logic gates and these gates define different combination of events that can result in the failure (peuss 2013). The tools like FMECA and FTA can be used by DFSS team in improving the reliability of the design by identifying the failure modes and their causes and can take preventive actions to avoid those failures in future.

Design for Maintainability:

This approach of design for X considers the design specifications of the product in a way to ensure that it requires minimum effort and budget in case of maintaining the product over the specified period of time. This design for maintainability is in a direct relation to design for reliability as improved reliability design would result in less effort and budget required for maintenance (Yang and El-haik 2003), The advantages of implementation of design for maintainability is that it would reduce the time taken for maintenance and would even reduce the parts required by suppliers for repair causing a reduction in cost. The DFSS approach can encapsulate this design aspect of DFX in its deployment process and can minimize the tools and adjustment designs required for the repairing of the product. It can use this design approach to handle different cost factors related to transportation and shipping of the product (Yang and El-Haik 2003).

Design for Life Cycle Costing:

Design for Life cycle costing is a design aspect which is used to reduce the cost associated with the life cycle of the design process. This approach enables and helps DFSS in making decisions regarding which activities to be conducted in the process and how much cost is associated to these activities (Yang and El-Haik 2003).

Activity based costing ABC:

This ABC is a technique used in this approach that translates that for a design of a product or a process, activities are consumed where as a conventional approach says that resources are consumed. This approach gives an insight of identifying and eliminating those activities to reduce cost (Yand and El-Haik 2003). Basically this technique of ABC process is carried out in six steps. In this first step the network of activities are created and in the second step, the cost drivers are identified then in third step these cost drivers are related to design changes. In the fourth step of the process ,ways are analyzed to minimize the activity consumption and then solution is drawn in the fifth step. If required, changes are made accordingly in the sixth step (Huang 1996).

Design For Safety:

Design for safety is another design aspect of DFX and can be implemented in the DFSS approach to avoid different kind of health risks and other safety concerns in the design process. This approach incorporates safety in the overall process and different fatalities can be reduced by implementing this design aspect in the process. It also considers safety concerns regarding the damaged products and their repairing and replenishment. The design for safety reduces the costs incurred in terms of warranty and replacement (Huang 1996).

Introduction:

Organizational learning is an important aspect to be considered and is one of the tool that derives continuous improvement in any organization. Lessons learned or knowledge share management are the tools that are used in product or process development methods and are of great importance to the organizations as a lot of effort and time can be minimized using these tools and maximum utilization of resources is made possible by implementing these tools in the process. This approach actually reduces the chances of failure and increases the success rate and Sechi et all (1999), identified the importance of this learning process and said that organizations can have significant impact on their operations and processes by learning from the experiences and tacit knowledge (Weber et all 2000). The Objective of this research is:

To identify the barriers that affect the use of lessons learned in a process.

To discuss their impact and identify solutions to those barriers.

Lessons Learned Process:

Sharing of knowledge from one individual to another in the organization based on some experience enhances the over all process of organizational learning and Nutt (1993) stated that this knowledge or lessons can be used by the decision makers in the design phase of the process. According to Levit and March (1988), the process of sharing knowledge and learning helps organizations in avoiding to do the same mistakes, they did previously (Kotnour and kustedt 2000). The knowledge transfer would be more appropriate if the lessons learned are stored in a formal manner and proper software is used to store the knowledge. This formal storing would increase the knowledge transfer process and Zander and Kogut (1995) highlighted the significance of formal storage of knowledge to enhance the learning process (Kotnour and Kurstedt 2000). In this knowledge sharing process three barriers to its implementation were identified by Purser, Pasmore and Tenkasi (1992), and they include the difficulties associated with acquisition of relevant knowledge, barriers to retain and process that knowledge and barriers to plan and use that knowledge (Kotnour and Kurstedt 2000).

Lessons learned process is a tool and a knowledge sharing mechanism which helps organizations in making decisions by providing the relevant knowledge required to make decisions in that particular situation (Kurstedt and kotnour 2000).Problem solving speed can be increased by implementing and using this process as a tool and hence the costs can be reduced and quality can be increase, so many organizations are implementing this knowledge sharing mechanism. Lessons learned processes are typically divided into five sub processes that are collect, verify, store, disseminate and reuse (Weber et all 2000).

Different lessons are learned through the earlier successes that a company made and same measures and actions can be repeated in the same situation to achieve same results and learning also comes from the failures that an organization face and avoiding the mistakes and taking precautionary measures to not let that happen again does benefit to the organization (Marlin 2003) and (Weber et all 2000).

Barriers to Effective Use of Lessons Learned in a process:

Some of the barriers to the effective implementation of lessons learned process identified are:

Lack of Leadership and Commitment:

The most critical barrier to the effective use of lessons learned in the process or product development is the lack of leadership and involvement by the upper management and their commitment towards the lessons learned process. If the upper management will not learn through their mistakes and will not admit to support this process then its implementation will not be possible (Dressler and Palen 2007). Management must lead by example and Marlin (2003) strengthened the criticality of this barrier by saying that if management will not develop openness among employees to admit mistakes and learn from them then learning will not be possible (Marlin 2003).

Not capturing the lessons in a timely Manner:

Another barrier to the effective use of lessons learned in the process is that if an organization is running a small project and capture lessons in the end of the project then it might work but for a longer project, capturing lessons in the end will not be effective as memories fade and people cannot recall everything that happened during the process. In this case a significant amount of lessons are lost and organizations must capture lessons in parallel during the process and conduct post project reviews and during the project (Marlin 2003). This timely capture of lessons at key stages during the process is even identified as a barrier by Dressler and Palen (2007) stating that it would be beneficial if lessons are learned along the process at specific stages and will reduce delays in implementing them to other projects.

No Validation of Lessons Learned:

Without validation of lessons, the use of it will not be effective as most of the problems and their root causes are not visible and a deep analysis and validation is required to identify the root cause to that problem. In this case the lessons learned must be validated before they are entered into a database and only after validation, they should be used (Marlin 2003). If the lessons are incomplete and not properly analyzed then the people would waste time and resources to solve something else where as deep down the problem would be because of some other issue (Darling et all 2011). Organizations create barriers to effective use of lessons learned in a process development by not developing software for the verification and reuse process. The organizations use standalone tools or electronic submission forms and then create problems regarding the browsing of stored data and relating it to the assigned task (Weber et all 2000).

Accessibility and communication barriers:

The barriers to effective use of lessons learned process include the issues related to the accessibility of the stored lessons. The communication of these lessons to the relevant person or employee should be properly conducted otherwise; it will be ineffective and if the lessons are not properly written or not easy to understand then it will not be easy to use those lessons, so a more practical way to avoid that barrier is to use multimedia which means that they should be explained using pictures, videos or images (Dressler and Palen 2007). Organizations must ensure the accessibility of lessons to everyone in the organization by storing them in one database and giving everyone the access to that database (Marlin 2003).

Conclusion:

The learning process is very important to the organization but is useless if organizations are investing resource and time in it but are not able to effectively use those learning’s in the future projects. The barriers that are identified in the effective implementation and usage of lessons learned are lack of leadership and their commitment towards the process, untimely capturing the lessons, no deep analysis of the lessons and not providing easy access to everyone to consult the lessons and learning previously made. The barriers can be minimized by involving everyone in the organization, promoting the communication level and having validated lessons stored in one common database to which everyone in the organization can have access. Organizations can avoid these barriers and can use the lessons effectively in the process or product development can have gain maximum benefit from the learning.