Assignment Task

LEAN THINKING

Brief

The following matrix represents a section of the application of the quality function deployment (QFD) technique to a vehicle rear-view mirror. The customer requirements are ‘easy to adjust’, ‘clear vision’, ‘easy to tell distance’, and ‘easy to clean’. These requirements are rated in terms of customer-perceived importance on a scale of 1 to 5. A scale of 1 to 5 is also used to create the customer competitive assessment. In this case ‘1’ corresponds to a very bad performance and ‘5’ corresponds to a very good performance. Technical characteristics and their relationships to customer requirements are also shown. Each technical characteristic is measurable and is an actionable translation of customer requirements. The target values for the identified technical characteristics are also provided. The design competitive assessment is similar to the customer competitive assessment. Again, a scale of 1 to 5 is used.

Questions

1. Identify and comment on six separate and significant outcomes or conclusions that can be derived from the rear-view mirror QFD example.

2. Complete the value stream map for the rearview mirror by calculating the takt time and the timeline. Make three separate recommendations for kaizen activities.

3. Propose a layout design for the rear-view mirror assembly and briefly discuss how teamwork and employee involvement relate to a company’s efforts to become lean.