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The following article was produced as
a result of an interview with the editor of Modern Plastics magazine.
The Design for Six Sigma cover story interviewed me as an "expert" for the Feb
1, 2005 issue released to 61,000 subscribers and featured my photo shown to the
right.
Staff. (Feb. 1, 2005). "Design Focus: Starting off on
the right foot".
Modern Plastics
International Magazine. Released to 61,000 circulation.
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"Design Focus: Starting off on
the right foot"
Six Sigma can fix many ills but is not a cure-all. Can it help your company?
Kim Niles is by all measures an advocate of Design for Six Sigma (DFSS),
providing compelling arguments for its implementation. But a career's experience
with injection molding and plastic processing has also shown him that the
program is not a natural fit for all situations.
"Injection molding processes are sometimes very forgiving," Niles explains, "but
in many cases they can be very complex." Offering presentations and papers on
the benefits of DFSS while implementing programs at various employers in
plastics, including Johnson & Johnson, Casio, Alaris Medical, and his current
employer, Delta Design, Niles has put together multiple articles, courses, and
presentations on the topic that stress the benefits of meticulous statistics and
manufacturing processes analysis.
"The reason why Six Sigma and DFSS fit the injection molding industry is that
many continuous variables are in use, such as time, temperature, and pressure,"
explains Niles, "which means there are a lot of interaction effects present that
are difficult to figure out without statistics."
Niles has seen DFSS applied in two primary areas: new plant/equipment layout and
new product design. In part design, Six Sigma can ensure that duplicate molds
really are duplicates, and can run on a variety of machines instead of being
optimized for one.
Beyond such plusses, however, Niles also points to some negatives, reasons why
Six Sigma and DFSS don't necessarily fit injection molding. "Many molding shops
are small companies," Niles says, "and therefore can't afford to implement [the
programs] in the same way the large companies that originally developed these
methodologies did." Niles also points out that smaller size can be an advantage
that makes DFSS moot since most employees at smaller businesses know what the
others are doing, making a team-based strategy like DFSS less effective.
Niles also says that the key to DFSS is, obviously, design, which many
processors don't partake in. "Most molding companies are job-shop vendors down
the food chain that don't necessarily work with the design aspect of the end
product," Niles says. "DFSS may still apply in this case, but would focus on
immediate customer needs and expectations, which are simplified relative to
end-product customers."
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