Reducing electronic component losses in lean electronics assembly with Six Sigma approach
Abstract
Purpose
In electronics assembly, the losses of electronic components throughout the surface‐mounting process (including kitting and setup) are hard to trace. This affects accurate material planning and manufacturing costing. This paper aims to investigate this issue and to generate a suitable mixture of strategies for the relevant causes.
Design/methodology/approach
The project is executed by an undergraduate manufacturing engineering student and several company engineers over a period of ten weeks. Define, measure, analyze, improve, and control (DMAIC) approach delineates the project stages. The solutions devised must be in agreement with lean philosophies and practices currently upheld in the company.
Findings
Component losses stem from multiple sources and are complicated by inherent information inaccuracies. A right mixture of strategies is envisaged on analysis on these sources. An average 18 percent of decrement in component losses in monetary value is achieved in the initial 16 weeks of the improvement phase.
Research limitations/implications
The DMAIC approach induces a focused, systematic and thorough study on the selected area. For the limitations, this study is based on a single industrial case. The evidence may be anecdotal and idiosyncratic to the electronics assembly industry. The final solutions which emerged need to factor in the organization current maturities in Lean and Six Sigma concepts.
Practical implications
Component loss is a common problem faced by electronics assembly industries. In this paper, the nature of the problem and the related investigation are extensively illustrated in the context of the case study. As many electronics assembly industries have embarked on Lean or Lean Six Sigma journeys, the savings and data accuracy improvement achieved in this case study provide valuable benchmarks.
Originality/value
The issues related to electronic component losses have not been reported in established literature to date. This is also the first reported success case study of applying DMAIC to address these issues in a lean company.
Keywords
Citation
Ping Yi, T., Jeng Feng, C., Prakash, J. and Wei Ping, L. (2012), "Reducing electronic component losses in lean electronics assembly with Six Sigma approach", International Journal of Lean Six Sigma, Vol. 3 No. 3, pp. 206-230. https://doi.org/10.1108/20401461211282718
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2012, Emerald Group Publishing Limited