A Top Electronic-Device Manufacturer, Taiwan

At the Motorola Quality Institute (MQI) in Taiwan, Motorola instructor Steven Lee trains teams of Motorola employees, customers, and supply chain partners on how to integrate Motorola's legacy Six Sigma program with lean initiatives and DFMA (Design for Manufacture and Assembly) software.

Real-life results speak for themselves. For example, this year a top electronic-device manufacturer and MQI participant completed 12 product redesign projects in four months, saving $6.8 million.

"The average product manufacturing lifecycle is very short, about three to six months, and Motorola's global development teams and customers launch hundreds of new products each year," says Lee. "We are always under pressure to improve, to retain quality with a current heightened emphasis on cost."

MQI's focus on speeding a high quality, yet inexpensive product to the consumer, relies greatly on Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DFMA) software from Boothroyd Dewhurst, Inc., Wakefield, RI. The software is based on Design for Assembly (DFA) and Design for Manufacturing (DFM). DFA lets engineers evaluate the functional purpose of each assembly component in a conceptual design, helping them to simplify the design and reduce parts. DFM identifies and calculates the cost drivers associated with manufacturing and finishing parts in alternative processes.

A clear goal of parts-count reduction goes a long way toward focusing a DFA project because parts-count reduction is the mechanism for eliminating labor content. While no design tool removes labor content from a product, reduced labor content is the result of parts-count reduction. That is, DFA takes parts out of the product thereby reducing labor content.

"Our primary mission is to provide learning solutions to internal and external customers to enhance overall business performance," says Lee. "Six Sigma can enhance product quality, cost, delivery, service, and customer satisfaction, and the DFMA program is key to optimal design and reducing manufacturing costs."

MQI courses engage design engineers, industrial engineers, and business managers in practical design projects. Metrics play a key role in these efforts, notes Lee.

"We encourage customers to build their annual business balance scorecards according to customer cost strategies and key performance Indexes that integrate Six Sigma and DFMA methodologies." These scorecards help quantify project goals and results.

His students find DFMA user friendly, and they're impressed by the significant reductions in parts-count and assembly time. Lee notes that at MQI "overall average parts-count reduction is 35% for new product design and 11% for existing product redesign. We find that introducing DFMA at the initial design stage generally gives the most cost benefits."

Lee says when the value of engineering tools such as DFMA is made clear to management and to Motorola customers, these tools become "institutionalized as part of a greater business strategy. They then return to their companies, taking with them lean, Six Sigma, and DFMA real-world experience."

Laptop Design at Head of the Class

This year, a top Asian electronic-device manufacturer (EDM) wanted to reduce the manufacturing cost of their laptop by at least 30% within 6 months. The company had used Six Sigma for several years but was "looking for a systematic methodology to improve overall performance," says Lee. He trained a team of the EDM's employees to reduce the parts count and assembly time of the laptop with DFMA.

Parts-count reduction as a means to reduce labor content is fast becoming a cost reduction strategy to offset rising labor costs in Asia. "Each year labor costs in China increase by 10%, driving either cost reduction or shifting labor to Vietnam or back to home countries," says Lee.

The EDM training class had more than 100 participants, including design engineering, manufacturing, and product management, with professional experience ranging from 2 to 20 years. Some were Six Sigma black belts and green belts. To stay on track, Lee had just one day to train his class in DFA software, and two days for project coaching.

Along with the Six Sigma statistical methods and lean principles, Lee taught the EDM team to integrate DFMA - for its ease of use in design iteration, benchmarking, and overall cost reduction. Cost information stored in the program reduces the time spent recalculating. "To improve manufacturing time, we simply consult the program instead of standing on a factory floor with a stopwatch and doing time studies, which have become obsolete," notes Lee.

The Motorola/EDM team reduced their laptop parts by 36% in 90 days, using the DFA Project Quick Win model. They were also trained in DFMA practices. In total they completed 12 projects, saving 30% on part count and assembly time for a PDA, 41.3% part count reduction on an LCD TV, and 57.5% reduced part count on a server. For the laptop, DFA identified fasteners and clamps for elimination, parts for consolidation, and improved ease and time of assembly.

Laptop	Old Design	New Design	Difference
Parts	124	79	36.3
Assembly Time (secs)	870	708	36.3%

LCD TV	Old Design	New Design	Difference
Parts	155	91	41.3
Assembly Time (secs)	749	474	36.7%

Server	Old Design	New Design	Difference
Parts	146	62	57.5%
Assembly Time (secs)	977	549	43.8%

Quick Win Wins

Laptop design engineers brought their original design to the table, and in collaboration with Motorola instructors and its product design tools and project strategy, the laptop design was refined and improved dramatically, using a smooth and focused collaborative process. Lee notes that DFA is a "systematic and objective methodology, which clearly promotes the evolution of design iterations and overcomes any hypothetical resistance against innovation."

The laptop project is an effective example of why Motorola University and its network of global campuses exist. MU's Six Sigma, lean and DFMA project model, says Lee, through "sponsorship" by business unit heads, business scorecards, and presentations of final product design, engages business management in the product design process. Lee observes that in other organizations, engineering is separated from business management, while the Motorola approach bridges that divide and brings business leaders right to the CAD table.

"To realize maximum cost efficiency in the long term it is imperative to foster a shared perspective between management and engineering," Lee concludes.

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BASF Service Center, Malaysia

The Malaysia-based BASF Service Center is one of our important clients. Though the company doesn't have a long history, it is affiliated to the world's largest BASF industrial and investment company. The newly-founded BASF Service Center mainly focuses on the Asia-Pacific countries and regions. Its main businesses include finance, information technology/IT, IS information systems and human resources. The company introduced Six Sigma last year, but they have gained a lot of experience in the aspect of implementation.

BASC started implementing Six Sigma methodology in the middle of 2007. Trainings, coaching and project executions have been carried out and are continuously being organized to provide a structure for identification of non-conformances, initiation of improvement projects and to build a quality improvement culture and mindset within BASC.

Six Sigma methodology is customer-centric and process-oriented, which provides the teams with a systematic and structured approach to explore areas for improvement with a thorough and methodical analysis focusing on the issue to generate solutions. It helps to channel ideas and foster staff motivation as the tools develop people and promote teamwork. The methodology enables BASF to accomplish their visions to achieve operational excellence, serve their customers with the best quality and to ensure sustainable development in the organization.

 

 

 

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Lenovo Group, China

Lenovo Group, one of the biggest domestic IT companies, started to buy in Six Sigma initiatives in July, 2001 through Motorola University. Lenovo is the leading company in implementing Six Sigma Green Belt and Black Belt programs.

Before taking on Six Sigma initiatives, the company had a world-famous consulting company carry out a thorough assessment and analysis in the aspect of manufacturing management, product quality system, operation process system and manufacturing field. Based on the assessment report, the company management team acquired a clear understanding of their strengths, weaknesses and opportunities for growth for the company. The management realized that the current product quality and on-time delivery were not good enough to maintain their leading position in the IT and electronic products industry or in the domestic consumer market, neither could it enlarge the export market or extend their electronic products to the international market.

After one year of implementing Six Sigma, with continuous improvement in their organizational structure and the set-up of several project teams, Lenovo in its core undertaking departments together with their supply chains and factories, successfully saved more than RMB20 million per year in China. The company became a benchmark in the industry and set a good example in successfully implementing Six Sigma.

"In general, Six Sigma not only brought us the philosophy of continuous improvement but also brought us effective tools and methodologies for problem solving and decision making. It taught us to apply scientific management methodologies to improve business performance," a Lenovo Six Sigma Champion said.

 

 

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ZTE, China

Over the years, the fierce competition caused by the liberalization of the telecommunications industry in China has quickly increased demand for superior product quality, excellent service and process efficiency of facilities suppliers.

ZTE kicked off its Six Sigma initiative in its business development strategy in 2003. At the beginning, the company invited Motorola University for its training and consulting programs on Six Sigma. It took ZTE only 8 months to complete 11 Black Belt projects and 15 Green Belt projects, which gained more than RMB500 million and achieved 1:30 of returns on investment (ROI).

ZTE was, no doubt, one of the leaders among the hundreds of Chinese enterprises who had been implementing Six Sigma initiatives successfully. During their 3 years of implementing Six Sigma, the company not only saved RMB4000 million but also trained many Six Sigma Talents and Experts within their own organization. Its best practices on Six Sigma implementation led the company to adopt a whole new corporate culture of innovation and set a good example and benchmark for Chinese enterprises.

 

 

 

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