Quality control (QC) is a process by which entities review the quality of all factors involved in production. ISO 9000 defines quality control as "A part of quality management focused on fulfilling quality requirements".
Ishikawa diagrams are causal diagrams created by Kaoru Ishikawa that show the potential causes of a specific event.
Six Sigma (6σ) is a set of techniques and tools for process improvement. It was introduced by American engineer Bill Smith while working at Motorola in 1986. A six sigma process is one in which 99.99966% of all opportunities to produce some feature of a part are statistically expected to be free of defects.
Control charts, also known as Shewhart charts or process-behavior charts, are a statistical process control tool used to determine if a manufacturing or business process is in a state of control. It is more appropriate to say that the control charts are the graphical device for Statistical Process Monitoring (SPM). Traditional control charts are mostly designed to monitor process parameters when underlying form of the process distributions are known. However, more advanced techniques are available in the 21st century where incoming data streaming can-be monitored even without any knowledge of the underlying process distributions. Distribution-free control charts are becoming increasingly popular.
Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) is an Engineering design process, business process management method related to traditional Six Sigma. It is used in many industries, like finance, marketing, basic engineering, process industries, waste management, and electronics. It is based on the use of statistical tools like linear regression and enables empirical research similar to that performed in other fields, such as social science. While the tools and order used in Six Sigma require a process to be in place and functioning, DFSS has the objective of determining the needs of customers and the business, and driving those needs into the product solution so created. It is used for product or process design in contrast with process improvement. Measurement is the most important part of most Six Sigma or DFSS tools, but whereas in Six Sigma measurements are made from an existing process, DFSS focuses on gaining a deep insight into customer needs and using these to inform every design decision and trade-off.
5S is a workplace organization method that uses a list of five Japanese words: seiri (整理), seiton (整頓), seisō (清掃), seiketsu (清潔), and shitsuke (躾). These have been translated as "sort", "set in order", "shine", "standardize", and "sustain". The list describes how to organize a work space for efficiency and effectiveness by identifying and storing the items used, maintaining the area and items, and sustaining the new organizational system. The decision-making process usually comes from a dialogue about standardization, which builds understanding among employees of how they should do the work.
Lean government refers to the application of lean production principles and methods to both identify and then implement the most efficient, value added way to provide government services. Government agencies have found that when Lean is implemented, they see an improved understanding of how their own processes work, that it facilitates the quick identification and implementation of improvements and that it builds a culture of continuous improvement.
Design for manufacturability is the general engineering practice of designing products in such a way that they are easy to manufacture. The concept exists in almost all engineering disciplines, but the implementation differs widely depending on the manufacturing technology. DFM describes the process of designing or engineering a product in order to facilitate the manufacturing process in order to reduce its manufacturing costs. DFM will allow potential problems to be fixed in the design phase which is the least expensive place to address them. Other factors may affect the manufacturability such as the type of raw material, the form of the raw material, dimensional tolerances, and secondary processing such as finishing.
The concept of Operational Excellence was first introduced in the early 1970s by Dr. Joseph M. Juran while teaching Japanese business leaders how to improve quality. It was formalized in the United States in the 1980s in response to "the crisis" among large legacy companies whose market share was shrinking due to quality goods imported from Japan.
Takt time, or simply Takt, is a manufacturing term to describe the required product assembly duration that is needed to match the demand. Often confused with cycle time, takt time is a tool used to design work and it measures the average time interval between the start of production of one unit and the start of production of the next unit when items are produced sequentially. For calculations, it is the time to produce parts divided by the number of parts demanded in that time interval. The takt time is based on customer demand; if a process or a production line are unable to produce at takt time, either demand leveling, additional resources, or process re-engineering is needed to ensure on-time delivery.
ProFIT-MAP is a business methodology for improving organizational performance and managing execution. Its objective is to help organizations achieve their cost and operational targets. It does this by identifying the relevant parameters that managers can control, linking them to the business objectives, showing which changes will be effective, and creating an execution roadmap that will achieve the objectives.
A PICK chart is a Lean Six Sigma tool, for organizing process improvement ideas and categorizing them during the Identify and Prioritize Opportunities Phase of a Lean Six Sigma project.
A lean laboratory is one which is focused on processes, procedures, and infrastructure that deliver results in the most efficient way in terms of cost, speed, or both. Lean laboratory is a management and organization process derived from the concept of lean manufacturing and the Toyota Production System (TPS). The goal of a lean laboratory is to reduce resource usage and costs while improving productivity, staff morale, and laboratory-driven outcomes.
Lean Six Sigma is a method that relies on a collaborative team effort to improve performance by systematically removing waste and reducing variation. It combines lean manufacturing/lean enterprise and Six Sigma to eliminate the eight kinds of waste (muda).
Lean dynamics is a business management practice that emphasizes the same primary outcome as lean manufacturing or lean production of eliminating wasteful expenditure of resources. However, it is distinguished by its different focus of creating a structure for accommodating the dynamic business conditions that cause these wastes to accumulate in the first place.
Lean IT is the extension of lean manufacturing and lean services principles to the development and management of information technology (IT) products and services. Its central concern, applied in the context of IT, is the elimination of waste, where waste is work that adds no value to a product or service.
A kanban board is one of the tools that can be used to implement kanban to manage work at a personal or organizational level.
Dr. Erick Christopher Jones Sr. is an industrial engineer and professor in the Department of Industrial, Manufacturing, and Systems Engineering at the University of Texas at Arlington. He is an expert in radio-frequency identification (RFID), quality engineering, and Lean Six Sigma. He is the George and Elizabeth Pickett Endowed Professor, as well as Associate Dean for Graduate Studies in the College of Engineering at the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA). Jones joined UTA in 2010 after eight years at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln, where he rose to the rank of Associate Professor with tenure. He previously served as the deputy director of the UT Arlington's homeland security focused University Center Security Advances via Applied Nanotechnology (SAVANT) Center and he serves as the current director of the Radio Frequency & Auto Identification (RAID) labs at UTA. Jones was the program director of The National Science Foundation's (NSF) Engineering Research Centers. He is currently Chair of the Supply Chain Technology Committee of International Supply Chain Education Alliance's (ISCEA) International Standards Board (IISB) and Editor in Chief of the International Supply Chain Technology Journal (ISCTJ).
Thomas Pyzdek is an American author and management consultant. He is best known for being an advocate of operational excellence and is an author of several books, hundreds of articles and papers on those topics.
