National University of Ireland

Lean Systems
Manuela Antonia Gomes da Rocha (15100056)
Science Without Borders

WORKSHOP

Galway
2015

The workshop was ministered by Dra. Olivia McDermott, Black Belt in

Lean Six Sigma. The whole purpose of it was to get the students to work,
developing our skills in lean such as how to use a tool and how to brainstorming
for solutions and problems solving. The first lesson was about Kaizen
methodology for continuous improvement. Kaizen is based on eliminate waste
and making small changes for the advance of the company. Kaizen could be
used for achieve a good lean supply chain, which the production process is
determined and scheduled by the demand. An example of a successful Kaizen
case was shown to demonstrate its efficiency when well applied.
Then we learned about the philosophy that value is what the customer is
buying, and its principles of value-added activity and non value-added activity.
A value-added activity is an action that is helping the company, this action is
necessary for what the customer is paying and is mandatory for the production
process because affects the product or service. A non value-added activity is an
unnecessary action or waste that does not contribute to the production process
and needs to be eliminated. Also there is an intermediate activity that is called
necessary non value-added activity, which the name already says, is a
necessary action to complement the production process, but is not what the
customer is paying for. This kind of action should be reduced for the
improvement of the company.
After that came some principles of lean, which are add value, continuous
improvement and map value stream. We learned how to calculate the value
added and non value added activity, because we would have to do that soon in
the construction of a map value stream. This map is really important due to its
capacity to show all the steps of the production process, putting in evidence all
the mistakes and where are the wastes that could block the company
development. Also the seven wastes were shown, which are defects, over
production, inventory, over processing, waiting, transportation, motion (and
under utilisation of employee skills). In all types of waste, the over production is
the worst because it could leads to all the others.
The exercise 1 was about the types of waste, which we had to identify
what type of waste the text was talking about. There were eleven descriptions
about an activity, and we had to say what type of waste the activities fit in. What
I learned from it was that an activity could fit in more than one type of waste,
and also it is a little difficult to identify what is the main waste in the action, but
this is very important because when you know what kind of waste you are
dealing, is easy to find an appropriate solution for it.
The next exercise was about a study case of a company named ABC,
which makes cheese sandwiches. We had to read the process of how the
company performed an order and identify where the wastes were and which
were them. This was a good exercise for stimulate our capacity to look for the
wastes in a process, and to know where they are, for then try to brainstorming
for solutions.

In the coming exercise we had to build a map value stream that for me
was one of the most important parts of the workshop. Materials, designs and
customer needs are considered as items in value stream. The first item to be
drawn is the customer and then the following steps after its order. All steps
should be incremented with its value added and non value added time for its
conclusion. In the end, the total time taken from the customers order to the
delivery of the product is counted, and also the total time of value added and
non value added activities needed. After that is possible to put in percentage the
amount of value added and non value added activity of the whole process. This
is very important because with the map is possible to identify if there is a lot of
waste happening in the production process of a company, and also it allows to
see where the wastes are, then is likely to find solutions and create a new map
with all the improvements.
The picture below represents the map value stream that my group made about
the ABC Company.

The next exercise was about the root causing, which we had to create a
cause and effect diagram for the ABC Company production process. In this
diagram a lot of root problems are put in evidence, and then is necessary to
identify what could be the possible causes of it. For me, this is really important
because we were able to define the problem, and also measure and analyse

the whole production process for find possible causes for the mistakes, which
could be a great help in finding solutions for it.
The picture bellow represents our cause and effect diagram for the ABC study
case.

In the fifth exercise we had to make cause screening of the problems

made in the previous task. The causes should be ranked with two letters, the
first letter represents the probability of it to be a root cause, a V for very likely
to be a root cause, a S for somewhat likely to be a root cause and a N for not
likely to be a root cause. The second letter represents the easiness of the cause
to be fixed or controlled, a V for very likely to be fixed, a S for somewhat
likely to be fixed and a N for not likely to be fixed. From this I learned the
importance of classify the problems causes, because then is possible to see
the urgency to fix some problems that could be a root cause but also could be
easily fixed. For me, with this methodology is easier to administrate the
problems, and to find solutions for them.

The picture bellow represents our cause and effect diagram with the cause
screening.

The next exercise was about looking for solutions for the causes that
were very likely to be a root cause, because these were the causes that should
receive most attention due to its ability to adversely affect the company. With
this I learned how to properly brainstorming for solutions and problems solving.
Also I learned how to use this solutions in the future.
For end the workshop, Olivia talked about the improvement phase that
came after the application of all these tools, and also she talked about some
lean principles like Kanbans, SMED, 5S, Cell layout, Takt time and the future
state stream map that we had to do next.
In the last exercise we had to use and apply this solutions in a new map
value stream, making all the changes and repairs to have a better result, and
also we had to calculate the value added and non value added activity to see
how was the improvement made in the company. In our case the value added
time increase from 40% to 66%, because we eliminate the inventory and reduce
the time that was taking between the manufacturing stations. The non value
added time decrease from 60% to 34%. In my opinion this was a great result
that could save a lot of money for the company. So I understand the importance
properly follow the lean tools, because in the end this could save a whole
company from failure and bring it up to success.

The image bellow represents our future stream map.