Autonomation 2

時間：2003.11
地點：美國
標錯價事件：379美元個人數位助理(PDA)價格錯標為79美元，戴爾事後取消上百張訂單。
-----
時間：2005.8
地點：澳洲
標錯價事件：澳幣592元的硬碟錯標為澳幣8.8元，戴爾通知消費者付原價或取消訂單，不過當地消保機關認為戴爾應出貨給已用信用卡付款的消費者。
-----
時間：2006.3
地點：香港
標錯價事件：港幣4,199元20吋液晶螢幕，錯標為港幣2,187元，折扣達48％。最後戴爾提供12％折扣。
-----
時間：2008.2
地點：中國
標錯價事件：人民幣8,999元的27吋液晶螢幕，錯標為人民幣2,515元，最後在輿論壓力下以錯價出貨。
-----
時間：2008.6
地點：智利
標錯價事件：智利披索29萬8,997元的筆記型電腦，錯標為智利披索7萬7,739元，非正式統計約有1萬5,000台，戴爾事後提供未來購物15%折扣，未得消費者認同，引起訴訟。
-----
時間：2009.6
地點：台灣
標錯價事件：全網站商品折扣7,000元，19吋液晶螢幕出現一台500元。戴爾事後提供1,000元、3,000元折價券。
-----
時間：2009.7
地點：台灣
標錯價事件：6萬元筆記型電腦錯標為1萬8,000元，有近1萬5,000台訂單。戴爾事後提供2萬元的折價券。

I always explain to my colleagues and underlings that it is no way to prevent human mistake by human checking. We only can prevent the human error by a checking system. The the process is critical, the management needed to setup more checking point in order to prevent the serious loss of business. In the same words, we can explain the idea by lean concept, and the lean tools is autonomation, or you can say poka yoke.

The above the information was talking about the wrong pricing and order received by online sales of DELL. I have no idea for how much for financial loss actually happen for the business sales by those wrong pricing issues, it is very hard for us to evaluate and it is meaningless to calculate how much count how much money in the others pocket. But all of us know it would cause a lot of customer loss for those cases, and it was a serious loss in business opportunity. Yes, off cause it would make some new customer and they are waiting DELL to mark wrong pricing again... sorry, DELL can not get any profit for those special customer...

My question is why the company can not setup some poka yoke for the online sales system? I don't think it would be more difficult than the poka yoke in manufacturing process. In manufacturing process, may be we need some high-tech design for poka yoke function, sometime, it would be came out in some special mechanism, or laser sensor, or color sensor...but what can we do for the online sales pricing? Is that hard to do so?

At my point of view, we need to understand the market and your target customer. I think those customer should be personal usage for purchasing PC online. If so, they should only need one or two sets of product. If the online system received 100 sets of order, it should alert some customer service or coordinators to manual check. To solve the problem from the beginning, we also can set some constraints to the pricing input. For instant, the price of monitor should be around 1000 to 3000. If somebody input a price lower or higher than the range, the system must give a alert to higher level and request for approval. I don't think it is very difficult to make that happen, and I don't think that was more complicated than the poka yoke in producing some products. But for these six years of time, it seems to us that nobody think about that can help.

Ironically, DELL is a successful company for implement lean manufacturing concept (may be it is only well done in inventory control...). I can not understand why there were totally absent of lean implement in sales and marketing system. It made me so surprise when I saw the news.

Do you have any other ideas to help them?

Lean design 2

In continuous for last post for explaining lean design, here is more information for 3P which is the last stage of lean design process. The last stage is launch design and we always apply the lean tools of production preparation process (3P) to support the product launch to mass production.

The above drawing is the flow of the 3P and it included three steps, which are information phrase, creative phrase and redefine phrase. And the main objectives of the 3P are as below,

1. Design process with evaluate the alternative process choices,

2. Incorporate for mistake-proofing and just in time in process,

3. Build in the quality system in process,

4. Guarantee process capability, capacity and tact time,

5. Standardize the process.

Production preparation process event (3P event) is the improvement activity focus on the product development process. Mainly point to the preparation before pilot process. The focal points are material cost reduction, capacity evaluation, quality specification setting, and process flow and stations design and improvement. These are the topics included in the 3P event for your reference.

Day1:

- Team introduction,

- Lean principles training,

- Production preparation concept training.

Day 2:

- Goal and Scope definition,

- Product introduction,

- Review product development schedule,

- Tact time calculation,

- Components diagram and analysis,

- Review BOM and material cost,

- Review quality record of every process stations for both internal and external,

- FMEA setup and review with possible solution,

- Control plan setup and review

- Component reduction analysis and design fine tune.

Day 3:

- 7 proposals for main process station,

- Setup the assess specification and assess the 7 proposals,

- Simulate the best 3 proposals, observe the process and look for opportunities of improvement for process handling, fixture, mistake-proof, quick change over,...etc.

- 7 proposals for process flow and layout,

- Assess the 7 proposals for process flow,

- Select the best proposal,

- Fine tune the equipments.

Day 4:

- Finalize quality control plan,

- Fine tune the equipments,

- Pilot run evaluation, observe the material storage and process time.

- Documentation for tooling, fixture and process station design,

- Review FMEA, and possible solution,

- Final process at a glance,

- Fixture and equipment investment plan,

- Implement planning.

Day 5:

Team presentation for program result.

Hope you enjoy the information above, thanks!

Lean design 1

What is lean design?

First of all, customer demand or need driven all activities in the company. In lean concept, we are only producing the product needed by customer. In the same words, we design the product according to customer wants.

There are three steps of the lean design, listed as 1. concept design, 2. detail design, 3. launch design. The details of those steps will explain below,

1. Concept design;

Refer the Kano analysis, in the stage of concept design, the designer or engineer should well study the customer demand according to Kano analysis. They should design which are the valued-added features for their target customer. For instant, a mobile phone manufacturer is going to design a easy phone for old people. They have to well study what are the features for old people needed. Is that old people need commerial features such as the words and excel built in their phone? Is that they need many mini game built in as well? No, I don't think so. On the other hand, I think they need a screen can shown bigger word and number. I also think they need a bigger keypad so that they can easier to press on the right number. May be they also needed a radio function built in so that they can listen the radio when they go out for a walk. So on and so on..., all the features they need are value-added. The manufacturer is only can produce a suitable product for their target customer in a good cost, otherwise, the product will cost too high and nobody would like to buy your stuffs. The value-added analysis is the most important tools in this stage.

2. Details design;

In this stage, we need to apply platform design and modular design in our product development process. In the words by lean concept, we must apply the standardization in our product design. Let us think about the design in automotive, all the car can be said combined by different engine platform, suspension platform, and structure platform in order to form a high flexible product line. What is the problem if they produce the car with different engine and suspension in every model? It is no way to produce the car in a low cost because they have to setup a special product line for every model, they have spend much resource to handle the material and subassembly. The other benefit is the automotive manufacturer can shorten the product development time. The engineer can choose the suitable engine, suspension and interior to fit with a attractive shape. That's the way how the successful manufacturer works for their product development, and it is also a lean concept applied. On the other hand, modular design is another important element in detail design. There is commonly appling on PC, and we always called it as, plug and play. It is good in expand the features of the product and reduce much development time. no matter is the platform design or modular design, they can be concluded as the standardization of lean concept.

3. Launch design;

For this stage, I will expand in next post. Thank you very much!

Visual Management - color indication

I have so many readers out of Hong Kong, but I believed that many of them travel to Hong Kong before. Do you know how many color used on the taxi in Hong Kong? The answer is "3".

Red color taxi are running in Kowloon and Hong Kong Island.

Green color taxi are running in New Territory.

Blue color taxi are running in Lantau Island.

Kowloon and Hong Kong Island is the urban district in Hong Kong, so the license and management fee of taxi is the highest. Offcause, the daily income and the rental charge of the red taxi driver is also highest. The green color taxi are running in New Territory and the density of client is lower than the red color taxi in urban district, at the same way, the license fee is also lower than red color taxi. Blue color taxi are only running in Lantau Island. The density of client is the lowest.

Many decade before, somebody in the colonial government felt there was trouble to seperate into three colors. They needed three sets of management rules and team to control. They suggested to combine all the color into red. Some councilors rejected the suggestion and gave their comment. Three colors of taxi is using to solve the problem of traffic jam. The highest population is in urban district, all the taxi from new territory will all move to Kowloon or Hong Kong Island to earn money. The citizen in New Terrritory may not take the taxi because it will be no taxi there, and the citizen in Urban District may not take the taxi too because all the traffic will jam. At that moment, there was no brigde connecting Lantau Island to urban district yet, but the truth is compatable too. The color indication is using to control the traffic flow.

In order to make the rule success, there is another important factor needed. Discipline, in Hong Kong, no matter the driver or citizen would call police to complain if they saw a green taxi running in urban district. Most of people has the sense of discipline, this is the most important element for the success. In the progress of kaizen, we are needed to focus on build up the lean culture as well. The culture would form the discipline and make the people to follow the change.

When we apply the tools of lean to our working environment, there are so many sample existed around of us for using. Sometime, use the actual sample in the real world to intruct the concept is more easier than list the samples from the text book, because those story is too far away from the people and they are hard to understand the matter they never saw. Therefore, keep watching the world and learn from it.

Sorry! I am back.

My friends and readers, I am sorry that the article was stop issued for a month because I need sometime to think and review for my future. From now on, I will resume the aritcle writing and keep share the thinking of lean with you.

At recent moment, I am setting a workshop for lean manufacturing concept in Hong Kong. Please email me if you want more information for that wongwowai@gmail.com

Thanks your your long term supporting and kindly care.