Why You Should Attend

     Conventional wisdom says that if labor investments are less in one country, then you should  produce your goods and services there. Many companies have taken that route, but the cost of labor is only part of the profit equation! Think about value add!

     What value do your employees add? Yes, the U.S. does have one of the most expensive labor forces in the world, but we also have the most literate, the most innovative, and the most enterprising.

     Leveraging that value-add labor force is a key component of Clemson University's Power Lean Certificate Program. By being a part of the Clemson University program, you will develop an integrated methodology, one which will enable your employees to apply the skills and abilities necessary to achieve operational and organizational excellence.

     By combining the principles of Lean Enterprise, Six Sigma, and Total Productive Maintenance, only the Clemson University Power Lean program offers a practical, low-risk approach to fast, bottom-line results.

     As an example of Power Lean Success, one of the Rockwell Automation facilities used Power Lean tools to generate these results:

How the Program Operates

How did they do it? Power Lean!

     Power Lean is a proven strategy that deploys the tools and methodologies of Lean Enterprise, Six Sigma, Maintenance Excellence, Business Process Re-Engineering and Management Control Systems.

     Power Lean drives fast, bottom line results, as well as the cultural and business transformation required to accelerate and sustain improvements. Through strategically focused experiential training, improvements have resulted in cost, quality, and delivery.

     As a result, this program has generated more than $150,000 per candidate!

     What do the Clemson Power Lean candidates do?

     Why is Rockwell Automation a part of Clemson University's Power Lean Program? One reason above all others: They have done it. Rockwell developed and implemented Power Lean and reaped the benefits of the extraordinary results. As part of the Clemson program, Rockwell  experienced team leaders and managers will be those instructing your candidates.

Power Lean Master Certificate Course Profile:

LEAN ENTERPRISE, SIX SIGMA AND POWER MAINTENANCE

     Clemson University has partnered with Rockwell Automation to offer a POWER LEAN Master Certificate training program.

     You will benefit from a series of 5 one-week sessions that focus on the key elements of enterprise transformation using the tools and concepts of Lean Production, Six Sigma and maintenance applications. Your 5 weeks certification process includes:

     At the completion of this course and once you have achieved an approved project certification, you will become a certified Power Lean Master. As a Power Lean Master you will be able to evaluate a work area and implement methods to improve:

Week One: 5S+1 and Value Stream Mapping

     You will be introduced to the Japanese concept of 5S+1. As a Master candidate, you will utilize kaizen events throughout this week while you learn to focus on 5S+1 activities: Sort, Set in Order, Shine, Standardize, and Sustain – with Safety. You will gain first-hand experiences though the use of a simulation—the best way to demonstrate Value Stream Mapping. During this component of your training you will discover the power of knowing both current and future state while your instructor offers a full explanation of the concept of value. Standard work, Power Maintenance, Six Sigma methodology, basic quality tools, basic statistics and kaizen concepts are also introduced in this session.

Week Two: Setup Reduction and Failure Mode and Effects Analysis

     You will be introduced to the concepts of internal and external setup functions as enumerated in the Single Minute Exchange of Die (SMED) methodology. You will also gain from your continued education in the Six Sigma methodology which you will learn to use as a roadmap to evaluate opportunities for improvement. Failure Modes and Effect Analysis (FMEA) concepts are introduced as the methodology to determine risk factors and prioritization of improvement tasks in a process. During your second week of intensive training, you will gain hands-on experience during a simulation which requires you to understand both measurements and the Minitab statistical software being used. This simulation is used as thebasis from which to teach measurement system capability analysis and further your experiential use of Six Sigma tools. This use of Six Sigma tools will promote your understanding of process trends. Poka Yoke, Japanese for mistake-proofing, is both explained, but examples provided truly drive the points of learning home.

     Also during week two, you will be provided a detailed, hands-on demonstration of setup reduction techniques. Using a simulated company, you will manufacture product and attempt to meet your customers’ delivery expectations. You will be led through the setup reduction techniques that demonstrate the effectiveness of eliminations of adjustment, dedication of equipment to product families, 5S+1, operator training, and work process standardization. Also, while completing kaizen events during the week, you will gain applied knowledge of SMED methodology.

Week Three: Establishing Production Flow

   During your third week of training, you will explore how to fully implement kanban signaling systems to create “pull” systems. You will discover how wastes associated with traditional “push” systems are costly to your organization while you develop techniques to eliminate these wastes. Kanban system designs are discussed and analyzed, and Visual Workplace systems will be introduced during the week. The concept of Visual Workplace systems allows for ease in your management of all manufacturing processes by making the abnormal conditions in the process visible. Your kaizen events during this week will focus on the development and improvement of flow, both through your value streams and in various parts of the production system. By the end of your third week of this applied training, you will know why, but more importantly how to remove waste, create visibility, eliminate overproduction, and establish a pull production system in sync with your customer’s pace.

Week Four: Variation Reduction

     This week your focus will be the elimination of error and rework, something your organization can no longer afford if it is going to meet the demands of a pull production system responding to your customers. During this portion of your intense training, you will become more familiar with how to use Six Sigma develop stable and optimal processes that consistently produce your higher quality output and which fulfill the needs of the lean system. Your instructor will introduce you to statistical experimentation. You will find the design of experiment (DOE) taught in class to be more cost effective, time efficient and accurate than competing methods. Process outputs are a function of a set of inputs. By fully analyzing these inputs, you can optimize the critical outputs. You will gain from the applied use of these tools through the use of Minitab statistical software which you will use to analyze the data and draw conclusions from the experiment.

     Also, your kaizen events you will be experiencing during the week will focus on the application of DOE in the optimization of process outputs. Not only will you get to design the experiment, you will be required to collect data, analyze, and modify the inputs that will drive optimizing your outputs.

Session Five: Total Productive Maintenance

     Rounding out your five weeks of intensive training, you will learn how to address down time in a proactive way that is sure to offer your organization the competitive edge. A lean production system must be able to respond to the pull of the customer. You will gain from the structured approach to equipment maintenance offered during this week of training. You will learn the concepts of Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) and how TPM guides the maintenance and operations organizations to create a robust, cost effective and high performing system for the care of manufacturing equipment.

     Also, you will learn how preventive, predictive and reliability centered maintenance activities are benefit your organization. Maintenance inventory, work order systems, critical parts, organization, training, and operator autonomous maintenance activities are studied as to how they are able to create a process that can yield > 98% uptime of equipment. During this segment of your training, you will continue your studies of Six Sigma. The use of SPC is introduced, and you will learn where and how to apply SPC in a process as well as how to interpret the resulting data. Special causes of variation, trends and variation cycles are also studied.

     And finally, during week five of your training, you will perform a Power Maintenance™ kaizen event at which time you will create autonomous maintenance checklists for the operator, evaluate the preventive and predictive maintenance programs in place, and perform basic maintenance on the equipment. You will know how to perform tasks to understand the health of the equipment and with the aid of plant maintenance personnel make corrective repairs. You will review the maintenance uptime data for the equipment and evaluate and make recommendations for solving the root cause of the equipment’s problems.

As An Added Beneifit

     Throughout your five week coursework, business processes in a lean environment are studied. Business processes have a major influence on your customer satisfaction and product costs. Good product alone is not enough to secure business. Performance related to delivery, service and support drives customer satisfaction. The majority of direct interface with customers is through business processes such as sales, customer engineering, order entry, invoicing, shipping and warranty.