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Poka Yoke Simulation Game
In other words, a defective part must never be passed on to the next operation. This will minimize the waste in the process, as you can imagine: the waste of correction, the waste of processing a bad part, the waste of handing a bad part and the waste of motion associated with it, even the waste of inventory for work-in-process, if this is your case. I'd like to invite you on a different journey where we learn about Poka Yoke or Error Proofing (Foul Proofing as we called it in the “good old days” as a friend mentioned to me) by playing a Poka Yoke Lego game. The game that you can teach right away to your team costs $25 for the instructions package. I hope you still have your Lego or Mega Bloks game from the Lean Boat game. Otherwise, you can purchase one or borrow one from your children. 1200 pieces is more than enough. The game comes with an introduction of the Poka Yoke concept and theory, full instructions, pictures with the operator work instructions, spreadsheet that you can print and use during the game, current and future conditions, all in a presentation format, ready to be delivered. There are two rounds, each round is played for 15 min (1 min equates 30 min real time), as we simulate one shift of 480-30 = 450 minutes. The game is for 6 people. If you have more players, just buy another Mega Bloks or Lego game and use the same instructions. It can be seen as a competition between teams.
In the far away country of South Wombat, there is a company that was just awarded an important contract. The feelings of excitement and increased security for their future are mixed with feelings of uneasiness: Will they be up to the challenge? This is what the president of the company said at the general meeting: “Fellow associates of the Fruit Bat Weapons Company.The Fruit Bat Weapons Company has just been awarded the contract to do the final assembly of the South Wombat Navy’s weapons system, the Super Widget Missile Defense System. The SWMDS is built from six subcomponents supplied to us for assembly and mounted on our nation’s ships. As you all know, we’ve been assembling this product on the low volume line already. The challenge we face is the quality of our product. Poor quality will destroy the company financially. Our challenge is to design our quality control system so that we can ensure that we build only good parts and that we do not pass on a defective subassembly. The rework on defective parts will not longer be acceptable with the new contract.” So the “Fruit Bats” put together a cross functional team and looked at their current processes. And this is what they saw: -2 assembly stations -1 final assembly station -1 final inspection station -1 rework loop (for those cases where rework was possible) All the checks and the gaging occurred at the final inspection station. An expensive in-line gauge system had been built for that purpose. At times it would cause downtime to the whole assembly line due to its complexity. The rework loop would send the repaired product back to the final inspection station, thus causing it to become a bottleneck of the whole system. Would you like to join them and together solve this major problem?
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