Lean Six Sigma in Action - Jabil Shanghai

Quality Magazine featured an article (web only) highlighting a lean six sigma effort at Jabil (Jabil Circuit Inc)
The Personal Side of Lean Manufacturing: Shanghai Project Helps Team Members
I was hoping to read a case of application of lean and six sigma principles at a factory where the methods had been integrated into the culture with results.   What I got is a sponsored content press release devoid of substance and rife with key words.

The article gave me that same sinking feeling when I discuss a quality problem or a new product launch with a plant team and get shallow talking points. Before I puked on my keyboard I thought I would look deeper into Jabil and their award-winning Manufacturing Process Optimization Program.

I found that the award won was apparently the Institute of Industrial Engineers 2014 Lean Best Practice Award. Jabil put a little video online touting their win:

Jabil did send a team to Montreal to accept the award.  The team members' enthusiasm is evident.  If the initiative in Shanghai helped institute the tools deeper into their process, that is important.

I also found a nice article from the Tampa Bay Times (Oct 2014) that helped to ease my cynicism:

Inside Jabil's competitive culture, a global contest to maintain its edge

The article's author, Robert Triqaux, added more of the story about Jabil's lean six sigma efforts. There seems to be more substance to Jabil's efforts than I first picked up from the Jabil press release in Quality Mag. Jabil has an active program to highlight and share projects across Jabil's worldwide footprint. Money quote from Robert in the article:

Is this just some feel-good exercise, some HR stunt to inspire corporate loyalty in a far-flung corporation? That's a small piece of it, but then that's what all well-run businesses do.

Final word goes to Jabil's Lew Gordon, Director Lean Six Sigma, Taken from the video:

One of the response Jack Chen gave to a question; was that Jabil, with 190,000 people, 90 plants, 33 countries, 17 or 18 essential languages, found one universal language that helps connect them all, and that is the language of the lean program.

Street Food in China - Chestnuts, Popcorn, Candy

Food preparation is also a production process. Time, temperature, pressure, and motion are critical inputs. There are specialized tools, machines, processes needed to manage the inputs.

I recently visited China and was amazed at the variety of street food available and the ingenuity of the cooking methods

I highlight a few classic staples requiring what I consider "industrial" methods, as opposed to simple stove of oven cooking.

Popcorn:
Chinese people love popcorn too.

Check out the Mythbuster guys trying out the same pressure cooker.  The safety equipment is turned to 11.

Puffed Rice:
Also cooked with the same pressure cooker.  This guy has a slightly different capturing device.

Chestnuts:
A staple in cold weather.  Chestnuts are sometimes cooked in a media of small stone pebbles.  I think the pebbles might be basalt. The pebbles help transfer the heat evenly to the chestnut.

Blown Candy:
My wife says this doesn't taste so good, but is pretty. In this video I think the guy makes a dragon.

Some other things that you can see made on the street are sweet potatoes, peanuts, pancake type dishes, dumplings. Yum.  Man, I need to go get a snack.

In the New Economy is US Manufacturing More Competitive?

This article from the San Francisco Chronicle looks at the question.

About 18 months ago, a plastics factory in Santa Rosa started getting inquiries from small U.S. companies looking to bring some manufacturing back from China.
The inquiries to Wright Engineered Plastics started amid soaring oil prices. Even after oil went down, the interest continued as raw plastic became more expensive in China while the local firm's material costs dropped, helping offset the advantage of lower overseas labor.
"We're actually winning bids based on quoting prices, which is extraordinary," said Barbara Roberts, chief executive of Wright.

To what is the ability to win new business attributed?

Though still lower than in the United States, the Chinese advantage has been eroded by other costs like communications and transportation.

If you go to Japan you find large companies contract the tiered supplier work to many smaller local companies. The relationship and proximity count for a lot. Some benefits are quick reaction time, long term relationship and trust, and smaller focused suppliers.

I know from where I work that on the other side of this economy we will be leaner and quicker.

Plant Closing #6

A recent post explained that the cost of labor in China was 4 to 5 times more expensive than in countries like Cambodia and Bangladesh. The global downturn is also having an affect on the global manufacturing base. Chinese exports are declining which is having an effect on toymakers that export to the US.

Melamine - Tainted Food. How Could it be so Pervasive?

Have you followed the current melamine scandal from China? The first scandal involved pet food.

Melamine was first discovered in food during the pet food scandal in 2004 (and again in 2007), which caused the death of many animals in the United States.

The new scandal started with baby milk contamination that hospitalized a bunch of kids.

The scandal broke on 16 July, after sixteen infants in Gansu Province who had been fed on milk powder produced by Shijiazhuang-based Sanlu Group were diagnosed with kidney stones.

The milk was contaminated with melamine. What is melamine?

Melamine is sometimes illegally added to food products in order to increase the apparent protein content. Standard tests such as the Kjeldahl and Dumas tests estimate protein levels by measuring the nitrogen content, so they can be misled by adding nitrogen-rich compounds such as melamine.

In other words, melamine is sometimes added to milk to make the milk appear to be a higher grade or to allow diluting to stretch the milk and earn more profit. (Same reason it was added to pet food)

Over the course of a few weeks melamine was found throughout the Chinese milk supply. Then it was found is many products that contain milk in China. Then it was found on products outside of China that contained Chinese milk products.

Now.... it seems meat may be contaminated.

In an AFP news report, Zhang Zhongjun, programme officer with the Food and Agricultural Organisation, said China’s agriculture ministry was investigating the possibility that melamine had been added to animal feed.
“If the feed is found to be contaminated, then there is the possibility (that pork, chicken, fish and beef could also be contaminated),” he said.
Zhang believed that feed producers could have laced their products with melamine to falsely boost protein content, similar to the methods of milk producers.

The question that I have is, how can melamine be so pervasively used, by so many companies, and so many employees, and there is no whistle blown? How likely do you think it would be for some illegal or immoral practice to be conducted in your plant without someone alerting authorities?

Textile Labor Costs

Here is some interesting data about the costs to produce textile goods in various countries. The data is a little dated. From EmergingTextiles.com:

...lowest labor costs are still in Bangladesh, at 22 US cents per hour or five times lower than in China's richest coastal areas.
Labor costs include wages, social charges, and a series of bonuses.

$0.22 per hour?

In addition to Bangladesh, Cambodia, Pakistan and Vietnam are other apparel exporters taking advantage of extremely low labor costs at 33 cents, 37 cents and 38 cents per hour, respectively.

What about China?

China's lowest labor costs are at 55 cents in the country's inland and remote areas while labor costs may now reach US$1.08 in certain areas of coastal provinces.

Recent strengthening of the dollar will help US relative costs, but..... wow.

Factory Girls in China

Howard W French, in the New York Times, has a review of a book about factory life in China. The book, Factory Girls - From Village to City in a Changing China , focuses on the huge pool of young women that migrate from villages to work in factories in the industrial centers of China.

The author is Leslie T. Chang. It turns out Leslie has a profile on blogger. She contributes to China Beat.

The life Leslie describes for these workers sounds harsh. But it is a way to make some progress from the even harder village life. The book sounds interesting. I have been to China and visited many factories there.

The recent economic downturn we are experiencing in the US is also having an effect on China. Factory orders are down. An economy that has been on a steady rise for years will be shocked when the brakes are put on.