Process improvement tasks and objectives

There are many reasons why a company may pursue continuous improvement projects: teams may be tasked with identifying cost savings; increases in demand may drive the need for greater throughput; long-running jobs may need review to ensure that they remain profitable over time. Any of all of these reasons may be enough to justify the resources and time to identify potential areas of improvement.

MITGI works with a lot of teams tasked with improving cutting tool efficiencies and performance. Here are some common process improvement tasks and objectives we’ve observed:

1. Establish criteria: What are the key metrics that will be used to assess what should be improved, and when success is achieved? The best metrics are the ones you can easily measure.
2. Gather data to establish baseline: Collect the key metric data for current processes. For some customers this is the number of parts per tool, others may use total cycle time, or cycle time per tool.
3. Review options: For each tool used in the project, determine which provides the biggest potential gain if improved. It may be useful to consider which tools are most expensive or which get the lowest number of parts per tool.
4. Confirm goals: Review the goals established in Step 1 and compare them to baseline from Step 2. Consider whether the goals seem achievable when compared to the current numbers. Adjust if needed.
5. Consider change options: There are a few common options to consider that may help to achieve improvement goals:
   1. Combine tools – This will reduce the overall tool costs in a project, and will remove a tool change from cycle time.
   2. Improve tool life – There may be small geometry or coating changes that could help to extend the life of a tool, thereby reducing the overall number of tools needed.
   3. Alleviate secondary ops – If burrs or surface finish requires secondary ops, consider whether tool changes could help avoid them altogether.
   4. Adjust speeds and feeds – Programming changes may help to reduce the overall cycle time and then consider whether related tool changes are needed. For example, when increasing speeds and feeds it may be beneficial to change to a coating suited to handle higher temps.
6. Test: Test the tool changes to confirm that the part meets requirements.
7. Gather data and compare: Collect key metric data using new tools and/or processes. How do the numbers compare to the baseline? Did the changes help to meet the goal?

If your team is tasked with process or continuous improvement projects, consider tool changes that may help you to achieve your goals. Contact  MITGI to start discussing your project today.