July 2015 - Manufacturing Technology Center

July 2015
1000 East Main, Wytheville, VA
(276) 223-4799
July 2015
Serving 17 counties and 4 cities in SWVA
www.mtcofswva.org
FROM THE DIRECTOR
Fiscal year 2015 ended June 30th, 2015 and there
are many important developments and accomplishments to report. Once again the MTC achieved or
exceeded all goals for the year.
Nelson Teed
First, congratulations to MTC’s partner, Genedge Alliance, who successfully completed the federal re-compete process and will
remain the NIST-MEP affiliate for the Commonwealth for the next 3 years!
As part of the award, Genedge’s federal funding will be increased and they
will be passing part of that increase on to the MTC. This is the first increase in
federal funding in many years and we are very pleased.
Second, the E3 program’s expansion into several counties in the Shenandoah
Valley is progressing according to schedule with several assessments completed and more scheduled. Keith Litz, our Environmental & Energy Specialist
responsible for the E3 program, shared his best practices for identifying and
choosing E3 clients via a national webinar sponsored by NIST and the EPA.
Third, the MTC is helping the region’s defense contractors hurt by sequestration and defense budget cuts diversify into non-defense markets. This is being done as part of the VA-DMEP (Virginia Domestic Markets Expansion Program).
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
News from the Director……….......1
MTC Sponsors Science Fair ……..2
Partnership News…………………..2
ISO Standards…….………………...3
Engineering Corner……..………….3
Environmental & Energy Corner…4
Summer/Fall 2015
E3 Peer-to-Peer—8:30 am—1:00 pm
Blueridge Community College
Registration Required; Fee: Free
Lean Six Sigma Green Belt—Fall 2015
As always, none of this would be possible without the talents and hard work
of the MTC Staff combined with the support and cooperation of our many
partners. I appreciate all your efforts.
Peer-to-Peer and Energy Assessment—Fall 2015
Best regards,
ISO event (TBD) — Fall 2015
I believe we are all in mutual agreement—very happy that warm weather has arrived! The MTC is very busy conducting projects and handling day-to-day business. If you have an idea as to how the MTC can assist you or other
companies, let us know. We are very interested in ideas, new products, and we are here to assist. The
MTC Board is looking for industry members to serve in the MECC and VHCC region. If you are interested, please contact me.
Linda Newman
If you want to know how Virginia is doing as far as economic growth, unemployment rate, salary
growth/reduction, I came across this site on the Governor’s page and found it interesting. http://
vaperforms.virginia.gov/indicators/economy/workforceQuality.php. Have a wonderful and safe summer!
Linda
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MTC SPONSORS 2015 SCIENCE FAIR
For the past 19 years the Manufacturing Technology Center has sponsored the Blueridge Highlands Regional Science Fair
directed by Radford University http://sciencefair.asp.radford.edu/. Winner of the 2015 Manufacturing Technology Center Excellence in Manufacturing Award was Samuel Christoffer Mogen of Radford, Virginia. Congratulations are extended to Mr.
Mogen for winning the award in “The Use of Layer-by-Layer Techniques to Aid in the Protection of Antimicrobial Films.” Many
thanks to Dr. Christine Hermann and Dr. Kimberly Lane, co-directors, RU Chemistry Dept. There is a lot of hard work and dedication put into this event by all those involved.
PARTNERSHIP NEWS
Genedge Alliance was awarded $1.72M to strengthen and grow Virginia’s manufacturing and industrial base over the next five
years! Genedge provides manufacturing and industrial assistance through services in strategic growth, process and supply
chain optimization, and change management through the state of Virginia. This funding will allow Centers to reach out to more
industry of all sizes. As a partner with Genedge, the MTC will be receiving more federal funding from the Alliance.
Dr. Charlie White, President of Wytheville Community College, will retire June 30. The MTC wishes Dr. White all the best in his
retirement!
Dr. Dean Sprinkle has been chosen as the new President effective July 1. Dr. Sprinkle comes to Wytheville from Statesville,
North Carolina, where he served as Senior Vice President of Instruction at Wilkes Community College. The MTC looks forward
to working with Dr. Sprinkle.
MTC is working closely with the Southwest Virginia Alliance for Manufacturing (SVAM). SVAM is made up of a group of manufacturers working with educational institutions, workforce development boards, state organizations, and other non-profits to
promote manufacturing in Southwest Virginia. MTC also works with the Tazewell County Economic Development Business
Team, as well as Southwest Virginia echnology Council. The MTC is happy to participate in any organization that has manufacturing as its focus.
ISO STANDARDS 9001:2015
Do you and your employees understand the new ISO standards? Are you at the transition stage you want to be? If not, you are
not alone. If you do, congratulations! The MTC offers a course in Half-Day ISO 9000:2008; Half-Day ISO 9000 Mgt. Overview;
2-Day Audit ISO 9000, as well as informational events. Please call us if you need assistance.
Transition to ISO 9001:2015
Scheduled publication date September 2015
ISO/TC176, ISO/CASCO and IAF have approved a 3-year transition period
All organizations are encouraged to start the transition as soon as possible.
Aim is to avoid “peak” of audits to the new standard near end of transition
period.
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ENGINEERING
CORNER
Toyota-kata
Over the years there have been countless books, articles, and blogs written about “The Toyota Way” or Lean. While
lean processes and tools can be effective when used properly, they are only part of what makes Toyota such a successful business. What makes Toyota truly successful are the things that you can’t see, the employee THINKING
process.
Shawn Wildman
In the 1980’s Manufacturing Engineers from the US noticed that Toyota was able to produce cars of almost any size
and make them profitable. This was a task that American auto manufacturers just simply couldn’t duplicate. In an effort to understand
what made Toyota different, a group of manufacturing engineers from the US went to Japan to study Toyota’s manufacturing processes
and procedures. What they brought back with them were the processes and tools that we now call Lean. However, what they did not
bring back with them was the true essence of Toyota’s culture that makes Toyota such a successful business— the thinking process of
Continuous Improvement.
First, you must understand what is truly meant by Continuous Improvement. I’ll start with what Continuous Improvement is not. Continuous Improvement is not Kaizen events, Black Belt projects, processes improvement plans, or action item lists. All of these types of improvements are an addition to Continuous Improvement. What Toyota considers to be Continuous Improvement is all employees working
every day to improve at least one aspect of the processes they are involved with. From day one of being hired at Toyota, employees are
trained to understand what waste looks like, to work to identify it within the daily processes, and work to eliminate it. There is a very specific process that Toyota follows to drive Continuous Improvement thinking process. It’s called Toyota-kata.
Toyota-kata is defined as the “Toyota-Routine”, and it is a routine that MANAGERS follow to drive Continuous Improvement at the machine level. The routine is embedded within the Toyota culture and works as follows:
Set a philosophy/direction for the business. A business philosophy is how employees within the business think. If you went to the
shop floor at this very moment and asked an employee “What is the most important thing we work to achieve here at ACME?”
What would the response be? To achieve zero safety incidents? To provide top rated customer service? Get the product out
the door? What managers talk about is what drives the philosophy in your facility.
Establish short-term target conditions. Line Supervisors are assigned a goal of achieving a set of target conditions on the machine
they are responsible for. Line Supervisors lead a group of Line Operators to achieve those target conditions. Target conditions
are not the same as targets. Targets are singular. Yield. On time delivery. Machine uptime. You can easily improve one by sacrificing another. Target conditions are all encompassing, for example: achieve a 95% yield, 98% on time delivery, and 93% machine uptime without creating unsafe work conditions. Target conditions should be achievable in 3-4 weeks and be a challenge
in that there is no clear path how to achieve it.
Utilize Managerial routines to achieve target conditions. The Managerial routine drives the Continuous Improvement thinking (the
philosophy) within the business. Each day Managers visit the production line and conduct the following conversation with Line
Supervisors (they actually read the questions from que cards):
What is the target condition? This question ensures that both parties understand and agree to the target conditions.
What is the current condition? The Line Supervisor communicates the current conditions on the line demonstrating the gap
between the current condition and the target condition.
What obstacles are preventing you from reaching the target condition? Which one are you addressing now? These questions provide the Line Supervisor the chance to communicate that the team understands the problem and have identified ONE thing to change to achieve the target condition. Why only one thing? When more than one variable is
changed at a time it is impossible to understand how each variable effects the output. This process is designed to get
employees to think about problem, and a lack of understanding of the variables confounds the thinking process.
What is your next step? The Line Supervisor describes what actions the team will take next to achieve the target condition.
When can we go and see what we have learned from taking that step? This question provides the Line Supervisor and
Team to demonstrate what they have learned from their successes and failures.
Set new target conditions. When the current target conditions have been achieved a new set of target conditions are set.
Toyota-kata is the part of the Toyota Way that the Manufacturing Engineers missed in the 1980’s, and regrettably most companies that
are practicing Lean still miss today. I’m sure you have heard the cliché that Lean is 80% culture change and 20% tools. It’s the culture of
Continuous Improvement thinking that most companies miss. It turns out that the cliché is true as Toyota and all of the companies that
worked to implement only the Lean tools and failed have proven.
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ENVIRONMENTAL AND ENERGY CORNER
E3
Keith Litz
On June 10th the Manufacturing Technology Center provided a webinar titled, MTC
E3 Program in Virginia: A Methodology for choosing high Impact Clients, for the
NIST/EPA’s national monthly E3 call. The presentation was developed from a Lean
Six Sigma Black Belt project completed by MTC engineers to allow us to better understand what
type of companies best benefits from E3 Technical Assessments regarding implementation of
assessment recommendations. Since there are a limited number of assessments we can conduct,
our hope is to assist companies that can react to our findings and achieve maximum improvements for their businesses.
Our client findings resulted from surveying the first 15 sites we assessed. We started our presentation with our introductions and then explained the location of our service region. I have heard all my life that most Virginians think that Virginia
ends around Roanoke. I take great pleasure explaining that a very beautiful and important section of Virginia is west of
Roanoke. We then continued to explain our survey process to determine what clients had already implemented and what
would be implemented within one year. We used six sigma DMAIC tools to better understand roadblocks and successes.
We determined that the county where the plant is located, the industry sector, and the headcount had no effect on
results. We found that multi-site corporations, corporate mandated improvements, continuous improvement activities,
higher sales and larger plants resulted in a higher implementation success rates. What we have found is that low hanging
fruit is gone but action will be taken on reasonable recommendations—though they are a little more difficult to find. We
will still assess smaller plants but need to see evidence of continuous improvement activities.
What we have determined to be roadblocks are: 1. No management support for improvements; 2. inability to provide
resources for implementation; and 3. lack of business— industry related.
Procedures that have been developed were shared on how to select high impact clients. We continue to provide our E3
services in Southwest, Southside and the Shenandoah Valley sections of Virginia. Thank you for allowing us to share this
very important process.
E3
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