Lean Six Sigma in Arantxaonline

Arantxaonline is the leading company in Suriname that deals with ink and toner cartridges for both commercial and domestic uses. The Company also sells printers to different organizations and to individuals who purchase to use them at home. The company has created a business model that strives to deliver printer cartridges that are compatible with the kinds of printers the buyer uses. Arantxaonline is a large retailer that should adopt taking full advantage of vendor ink and toner cartridge recycling coupon redemption programs. This is for instance when customers return cartridges for recycling, the company can return a good percentage of the cartridges to vendors for coupon redemption. A good return rate can directly increase the retailers’ margin on the products. This article focuses on the utilization of the lean six sigma process by Arantxaonline. This is in conjunction with tools like DMAIC, CTQ, Voice Of the Customer (VOC), and Kaizen.

Many manufacturing organizations have adopted the application of the Lean six sigma approach. This is a combination of various management principles and processes that originate from Japan. Many of these organizations are with the aim of competing with high-quality products from Japan. The lean six sigma approach entails manufacturing principles that focus on waste reduction in form of non-value-adding actions. This is a combination of six sigma methods/tools and the lean manufacturing enterprise philosophy with the aim of eliminating physical resources wastes, effort, time, and talent. All these processes take place ensuring there is quality in production and organizational processes. Generally, therefore, the tenets of the lean six sigma approach consist of the use of resources that do not create value for the end users that are considered waste is required to be eliminated.

Principles of Lean Manufacturing

There are five principles of lean manufacturing that Arantxaonline can apply in its ink and cartridge production. The first one is the value of these products which should be determined by what the Arantxaonline customers consider as important within its products and services rather than what an individual developing and delivering the product or service considers as important.

The other principle is value stream which involves the set of activities and steps that Arantxaonline carries out in the creation and delivery of its products to customers. It is the connection of the various steps rather than consideration of each step.

The other principle is flow, the degree to which the company experiences an uninterrupted flow of activities adding value to the customers and not waste and inefficiency that impedes the flow through the value stream. The pull is also another principle which is the degree to which the value stream only processes products and services where there is customer demand and not creating something with the hope that customers will like it.

Perfection is also another principle of lean that is a continuous assessment of the performance of the value stream used to identify and improve the created value and delivered to customers. This is preferred rather than resisting changes that are responsible for improving the creation and delivery process of customer value. From these principles, it is clear that Arantxaonline can apply them in all its business processes or operations.

Lean Six Sigma Tenets

Focusing on the tenets of the lean concept, it is a management concept that focuses on the elimination and reduction of DOWNTIME (defects, overproduction, waiting, non-utilized talent, transportation, inventory, motion, and extra-processing) waste, which are eight kinds of wastes. Lean, is any method, tool, and technique used in improving all manufacturing processes. The lean process was initially introduced by a Motorola engineer in 1986 and later was inspired by Kaizen, a Japanese model. Kaizen run a trademark of the approach in 1993 with the intent to improve processes through the identification and elimination of defect causes and variations in business as well as manufacturing processes.

DMAIC

There are six sigma DMAIC phases that lean six sigma introduces. The acronym DMAIC stands for define, measure, analyze, improve and control referring to methods that are data-driven for improvement, optimization and stabilization of business and manufacturing processes. This is an integral part of the six sigma initiative that Arantxaonline Company should adopt although it can generally be implemented alone as a quality improvement process or as a part of initiatives for process improvement such as lean.

The ‘define’ step involves the organization defining the problems and goals such as the customers and their requirements. It also defines things like the targeted improvement processes, the steps of making up the processes and quality issues. The ‘measure’ step is the process that targets improvement. In this step, an organization established data collection plans for the process and the collection of data. For instance, Arantxaonline Company can measure how many ink and cartridge products are likely to fall outside the parameters of a customer, the times a production process is backed up and the number of project reports that are turned in late in an office setting.

The ‘analyze’ step

The ‘analyze’ step comes after collecting data to find where current performance does not meet the set goals. It is, therefore, important for Arantxaonline Company to seek opportunities for improving the processes, find defect causes, bottlenecks and spots where there occur variations in the process. Next is the ‘improve’ step which involves the design of solutions for processes’ improvement. This is through the creation of a test plan and trying out the different solutions to learn which can best solve the problems identified without creating new ones. The final step is ‘control’ which regulates the process improvement to keep it in the right course. It is important for Arantxaonline Company to resist returning back to the initial ways of doing things and continue monitoring the process taking measurements regularly to ensure that the solutions are working quite as intended.

Critical to Quality

There is also a six sigma tool called Critical to Quality (CTQ) that is used in the identification of the needs of customers and translating the information into important measurable process and product requirements. This tool is important for Arantxaonline to understand the characteristics of products and services that drives the quality for its customers. Before Arantxaonline can initiate any process in the improvement of the project, it is important for the management to determine the various characteristics of the product and service that are quite critical to quality as customers judge it. Creating a CTQ tree is essential in determining the drivers behind the characteristics helping the company find ways to accomplish them.

Kaizen

When it comes to the use of the kaizen, it has great main objectives in many organizations such as quality control, standardized work, in-time delivery, efficient equipment use and waste elimination. Arantxaonline should apply Kaizen with the aim of making small changes over a period of time to help in creating improvements. This will not mean that alterations at Arantxaonline will happen slowly, it will simply help in recognizing that small changes have a huge impact in the future of an organization. It is also important for Arantxaonline to understand that improvements may be influenced by any of its employees at any time. This is because everyone has a stake in the success of the company and all should strive in making its ink and cartridge business model better.

Adopt the kaizen concept

Arantxaonline should adopt the kaizen concept and esteem it as one of its great core values. Arantxaonline should empower and encourage all its employees in identifying potential improvement areas and create viable solutions. Just-in-time (JIT) inventory strategy will help Arantxaonline management in minimizing excess inventory through matching ink and cartridge raw materials’ delivery from suppliers with a production schedule. This helps in reducing waste and increasing efficiency in the cycle of production. When Arantxaonline popularizes the JIT inventory strategy, it will cut various production and delivery costs because it will not have to pay for inventory carrying costs. The wastes will be reduced because the company will not be left with any extra inventory, should a customer cancel or postpone their ink and cartridge orders. Additionally, Arantxaonline can utilize the combination of Kanban inventory control system which will provide employees with various visual cues guiding them on the time to order ink and cartridge parts and materials as they run out. This Kanban system utilizes colored cards that can track products and alert employees on when they should replenish a required part or material. This way, the Arantxaonline employees will efficiently order the correct number of parts from the company suppliers and have them delivered to their customers in time. Kanban, therefore, will ensure that Arantxaonline have efficient running of its assembly line and prevent bottlenecks from taking place.

Voice Of the Customer

More so, Arantxaonline can apply the use of VOC (Voice Of the Customer) which could be a foundation of quality improvement project in the six sigma. This is because the customer defines the quality and value of a product or service. Embracing VOC will enhance successful quality improvement of the company’s projects hence achieving cost savings and improved customer relations through understanding customer needs and wants. When Arantxaonline adopts a sigma project team that first focuses on customer expectations, it will fully understand potential improvement opportunities. The company should also have a quality team that asks its customers directly and centers the six sigma projects on the responses that will successfully change the process and increase the quality as well as the value that the process provides to the customers.

Conclusion

The lean management concepts combined with the six sigma tools and techniques make clear the processes that are prone to variation. The combinations help in reducing the variations to ensure there is continued improvement. With Kaizen, DMAIC, CTQ and VOC, Arantxaonline can focus on gradually improving its productivity through employee involvement and making the work environment efficient. These tools will help Arantxaonline change for better and continue improving. The small and gradual changes can help Arantxaonline improve its quality control in ink and cartridge manufacturing, ensure in-time delivery of the products to its customers even abroad, and standardize the work of manufacture and delivery. This philosophy is also important in ensuring that Arantxaonline uses efficient equipment in the manufacture of ink and cartridge and also the elimination of waste during the manufacturing process.