Lean Six Sigma at Nutritional Laboratories International, Inc.
Posted by: meikah | 13 June 2007 | 8:22 pm
The Nutritional Laboratories International, Inc. or NLI, is a premier manufacturer and provider of laboratories services such as encapsulation, tableting, tablet coating, and bottle packaging/labeling.
Recognizing the need to produce high-quality product and services, the company sent 11 employees to a Lean Six Sigma training from December 2005 to April 2006. The training provided tools that would deploy Lean, gather current situation data, and develop problem-solving techniques for data analysis and trend identification.
NLI’s initial Six Sigma project ended product rework, which accordingly swallowed up resources and at the same time impaired productivity.
For example, if 50Kg of tablets out of a 2,000Kg order don’t meet hardness specifications and have to be reground and go back to the tablet press, then time, labor, and cost are added to the product which weren’t included in estimated manufacturing production costs. That takes a bite out of expected profits.
By reducing such rework, Team A created cost savings, improved customer response time and freed up operator and machine time to respond to additional sales. Management estimates that a 25% reduction in rework will yield up to $100,000 in labor savings per year as well as freeing up capacity to generate significant revenue. Estimates at the company’s standard margins are expected to exceed $4 million annually.
According to Andy Roche, Continuous Improvement Manager, “Using disciplines like Six Sigma for continuous improvement, companies achieve measurable excellence not only internally but also for processes involving customers, partners and suppliers.”
Source:
NPI Center, NLI Takes Quality to the Next Level with Lean Six Sigma, a featured link of iSixSigma
