Title

Going GREEN With LEAN

Document Type

Student Presentation

Presentation Date

4-17-2017

Faculty Sponsor

Beau Hansen

Abstract

Six Sigma Greenbelt is a 32-hour course that provides training to business stakeholders to optimize efficiency in production. The program teaches the principles of Lean Six Sigma. These methods can reduce different kinds of waste, including: Transportation, motion, waiting, defects, etc. While environmental sustainability is not a pillar of Lean Six Sigma, we believe that waste elimination is inextricably linked to Greener solutions. Improving material, time and energy efficiency allows us produce more with less, giving companies the ability to save money and have a decreased environmental impact.

We worked with four different companies: Woodgrain Doors, Usful Glassworks, Mirage Trailers, and In the Ditch Towing Products. Our methods varied in these four projects, however the main procedure was to collect data on motion, waiting and defects waste over a 30+ hour period. We then would plug the data into Excel and use software QiMacros to create histograms and a number of different graphs. Suggestions would be made based on the results of this graphing, intended to reduce outliers and narrow distribution of results. After completion, small changes can have large results. For example, at Woodgrain Doors it was suggested that an unnecessary anti-crash process be eliminated from manufacturing. This saves 22 seconds for every 5 minutes of program running. With 100+ programs run/day, an average of 3 hours can be saved weekly. Similar improvements were made at the other three companies, the results of which will be presented on our poster.

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