In KNPL, we always try to replace the word “impossible” with “I am possible”. This becomes visible when we consider all failures as an opportunity for developing better ideas to reach the goal.
Our QA head being experienced in Manufacturing Excellence always analyse issues before solving it.
During his initial days in QA head role, he analysed and found that, solving residue complaint will resolve the major issues faced at our OEM customer end. Residue is some ungrounded particles which will chock the paint guns while application at customer end.
He was confused on how to resolve the issue and approached the Production Engineering Head who is an expert in finding solutions and hence nicknamed as doctor in our factory. Through a detailed analysis of process, he concluded that residue issue is mainly arising at the time of cartridge chock while filling. Further, they tried to find out why residue is entering the containers along with the final paint, even though filter is present. They dismantled the filtration unit and found that there is a gap between filter cartridge and its fixture and the residue particles are escaping through these gaps to the paint containers.
Now here comes the role of a Mechanical engineer who is capable of redesigning the cartridge fixture that suits the existing unit. Our Mechanical team under the leadership of Mr. Senthil started the brainstorming session and came up with multiple solutions. Initial 3 designs failed to suit the existing unit.
This disappointed the team and they even thought of handing over the case to filtration unit manufacturer.
Our Works manager and Production head, who are very keen on utilizing existing resources before any third party involvement, directed the team to take trials and took responsibility of batches getting spoiled during trials.
This gave motivation for the team to gear up their thoughts further and finally arrived at a fixture design which suits the existing unit and solves the residue issue.
It was surprising that zero batches were spoiled while conducting the trials. After all, satisfying customer is more important than satisfying internal stakeholders. Therefore, we invited our customer to visit our site and judge the improved design as per their requirement. Our customer team was very glad to see our involvement in developing such a design.
Believing in the confidence which we have given back to them in sustaining quality, they suggested us to do one more project to avoid any case of wrong label on containers or containers without label. Since labels pasted on containers are the only source to identify the product details, it is critical to paste the correct label on containers.
Being a Japanese company, we believe in their practices, and therefore we planned to develop “Pokayoke” which means mistake proofing. We are having a system in water based paint filling line where the container position is corrected with the help of a sensor at the time of printing. Keeping the same logic in mind, the same engineering members developed a sensor, which sense the abnormality in label and stop the filling line till the abnormality is cleared. The details of the label can be pre fed into the sensor unit using a USB. To our surprise, this pokayoke was well appreciated by customer and they even gave an opportunity to display this in their premises to their other suppliers.
The journey of Kaizen in KNPL still continues.
Lessons Learned
- Motivation and insect eye view are most critical parameters for improvement and breakthrough thinking.
- Failures are opportunity for developing better ideas