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GOODWILL INDUSTRIES OF WESTERN NEW YORK

IE – 409/509SIX SIGMA QUALITY PROJECT

Department of Industrial And SystemsEngineering

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INTRODUCTION

Founded by three local businessmen: Allen Hamling, Edward Read and Dr. Harvey Ott, under the auspices of Grace Methodist Episcopal Church in 1919.

Vision: We will develop a resource base that maximizes the services we provide in the communities we serve. Our services will be united by a vocational emphasis and characterized by relevance, excellence and cost effectiveness.

Mission: We help individuals and families in our community achieve a better life through work and independence.

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HOW DO THEY WORK?

Accept donations from people in the form of clothes, furniture, electronics, toys, shoes, etc.

Collected goods are put through different quality checks.

Quality-checked goods are sold at extremely nominal rates at different Goodwill stores located in Western New York.

Scrap gathered from non-sellable items – sold by weight.

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PROBLEMS FACED!

At Goodwill Industries, from floor planning and material handling to inventory control, there is no standardization.

Some of the problems were:The process floor layout was not optimally designed, flow of materials showed high redundancy. Lack of process standardization in different departments. Lack of proper documentation and historical data made it difficult to establish baseline.

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AIM AND OBJECTIVESBased on these, we decided to work and improve

the following:

Process planning and optimization of wares

sorting section.

Overall plant layout optimization

Comparing cost of rags and soft toys for

selling as waste so as to release the floor

space occupied by the soft toys.

Sorting time reduction by sort station

redesign.

D M A I CAs per the Six – Sigma method, we followed the

D – Define

M – Measure

A – Analyze

I – Improve

C – Control

rule. The following were our observations and actions.

DMAIC TOOLS USEDPHASES SIX SIGMA TOOLS

DEFINE i.         Project Selection Matrix

ii.         Project Charter

iii.         Process Flow Chart

MEASURE i.          X- Bar& R-Bar Charts

ii.         Spaghetti Chart

ANALYZE i.         Why-Why Diagram

ii.         Brainstorming

iii.         Cause and Effect Chart

IMPROVE i.         Optimized Flow Chart

ii.         Optimized Shop floor Layout

iii.         Cycle Time Reduction

CONTROL i.         Guidelines

SIPOC

SIPOC is a high-level picture of the process that depicts how the given process is servicing the customer.

Can be seen as a high-level process map.

Typically used during the define phase of a process improvement project - helps clearly understand the purpose and the scope of a process.

We could relate to the 8 diseases as follows: Overproduction Inventory: Due to insufficient of fixed labor force and

specialized workers Transportation: The truck scheduling was not under our

control. Defects: not measurable due to lack of a standard to relate to. Motion (Operations): Material handling problems Over-processing Waiting: Again the problem of material handling Non-Utilization of Resources: Real Estate wastage

EIGHT WASTES

WE WORK ON?

Overproduction Inventory: Due to insufficient of fixed labor force and

specialized workers Transportation: The truck scheduling was not under our

control. Defects: not measurable due to lack of a standard to relate to. Motion (Operations): Material handling problems Over-processing Waiting: Again the problem of material handling Non-Utilization of Resources: Real Estate wastage

CAUSE AND EFFECT

PROCESS FLOW CHART

Current Layout

Optimized Flow Chart

REQUIREMENT OF NEW LAYOUT

Relevant from the process flow diagram.

Ideal situation of automation is not possible due to budget limitations.

The new layout provides an optimal solution within the given constraints.

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CURRENT PLANT LAYOUT

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OBSERVATIONSStaging areas far away from processing

areas.

Distance of Textiles and wares sorting

section from entry and exit is more

Distance of bales from entry and exit is less

Waste generation area far from entry and

exit door

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REVISED PLANT LAYOUT

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ADVANTAGESTextile and wares sorting area closer to

entry and exit doors

Staging areas are closer to processing area

Material Handling reduced

Increasing speed of Flow

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WARES SORTING SECTION

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DEFINE

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CURRENT LAYOUT FOR WARES SECTION

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MEASURE

X- BAR & R-BAR CHARTS

20 19 20 18 17 19

20 19 16 18 22 20

18 20 22 23 19 17

17 21 20 21 23 19

21 19 21 20 16 17

54321

22.5

21.0

19.5

18.0

Sample

Sa

mp

le M

ea

n__X=19.4

UCL=21.841

LCL=16.959

54321

10.0

7.5

5.0

2.5

0.0

Sample

Sa

mp

le R

an

ge

_R=5.05

UCL=10.12

LCL=0

Xbar-R Chart of C1, ..., C6

SPAGHETTI DIAGRAMOriginal Spaghetti

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ANALYZE

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Why-Why?

Rejection rate

Brainstorming

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IMPROVE

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REVISED LAYOUT

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CONTROL

LABOR TRAINING ACCORDING TO GUIDELINES FORMULATED

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TO PROCESSORS:1) There will be two levels of sorting, light

skimming and thorough sorting.2) Stand in front of the cage and skim through

the items one by one. This level need not be thorough.

3) Reject most, keep aside what looks really good.

4) If the item looks acceptable place on the table, otherwise, dump in the dustbin.

5) After the table is full, shift focus on the table to thorough check all items on table.

6) What is acceptable after this stage, place in the respective basket.

7) After the cage is empty, push the empty cage aside and replace it with full cage.

 

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TO HANDLERS:

There are the following primary tasks for the

handlers:

 

1) Replace empty cages with filled ones

2) Replace full baskets of “electronics”,

“books”, “shoes” and “wares” with empty

ones.

3) Replace the full “bins” with empty ones.

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CONCLUSION

Reduction of material Handling

Reduction of human effort for

handler

Possibility to free up resource

Reduction of steps of process

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