Introduction
Six sigma & Safety Performance have significant part in one organization, mostly industry. Clearly, employee’s awareness about safety plays a critical and important role in quality part. Poor awareness of safety display a poor safety condition and is linked towards decline in the actual safety and health of employee. The commitment of any operation manager can grow employees performance in general and quality results in general.
Objective
The objective of this article is to use Six Sigma method to recognize and reduce the occurrence of accidents or mishap at the company. The methods of Six Sigma used are Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control (DMAIC). In define stage, the safety level and rate of mishap is recognized through past measurements and statistics. Fundamental and sub causes for the variety in safety level are measured through surveys. In analyze stage, those causes were confirmed and in this way root causes were recognized. And at last, in improving and controlling stage, proposals is created to improve the safety level
Define and Measure Phase of Six Sigma
It is observed that for the manufacturing company, has high accident rates for the period of January to December 2010 (FIGURE 1). It also shows the department constitute few numbers of accidents (FIGURE 2). This is causing too many man day loss, high cost and property damaged cost. It shows that the company is already spent lot of money to ensure their facility safe, but there policy seems to fail at some point. The concern of management of the company is to decrease the losses in future and makes strides the safety policy. The safety working costs were brought by the management as Table 1
Same, due to accidents there’s damage to company facilty and property, which is accounted as property damaged cost or facility damaged cost. The Table 2 presents that within the past year, the production line absorbed cost loss in both equipments and moneys due to number of accident that took up inside the packing/finishing line alone. The numbers of damaged equipments and their related cost are tremendous and are to be concerned in future incase the company needs to preserve or grow the business.
It is observed that the worker’s accident varies from small wound to severity injuries. The past record shows that there’s obvious that department needs focus of attention is the production and packing/finishing line. Due to the instruction from the management of company and because of concerned to the welfare of employers, the management focused on packing/finishing department. Along these lines, another objective was set to measure the important information in support of decision making and activity to be taken to reveal the genuine issues related to the low safety hazard level in the packing/ finishing department.
Measure Phase
At least 20 total workers were interviewed in (packing/finishing department) to the factors that are related with their work safety. The result highlight that :
a) Employer background
b) Working environment
c) Poor equipment/tools supplied
d) Poor housekeeping
e) Carelessness
f) Lack of awareness of PPE are the main factors
Based on the information collected from the experienced workers, safety components tree related was developed according to Six Sigma procedure (FIGURE 3) .Additionaly, since the employees were supervisedby the administrative personnel, it need to ensure to sort the safety issues by verifying & questioning the managers and supervisors.The tree then updated from information of manager and head of departments and also supervisors.
To advance substiate, one to one details discussion with process engineer, safety and health officer and the administration of the company. There was 3 different sets of surveys conducted which are workers, supervisors and managers. At first, pilot survey was conducted. Along these lines, the retest method is used to complete the same set of questionnaire twice within a few hours gap in between. The results and its analysis is presented in analyze phase.
Analyze Phase
This part represents how survey outcomes are utilized to get overview perspective of employees, managers and supervisors. This area also presents our views on the current facilities and format and the sort of different injuries. Based on the outcome of survey, it is shown that background of workers is the main factor for the low safety level of workers. This t showing that there’s something wrong in the workers behavior which has been investigated by dividing the main cause into sub causes.
Similarly, the work environment is another following cause. It is commendable to explore this cause as well. It is additionally evident that there’s safety satisfaction of workers towards safety system in the department and safety equipments are made available on site. In this way result from surveys is used to assess the background of worker in packing/finishing line. The details are displayed in FIGURE and the worker culture (the country he be belongs) is the subcause of low safety level followed by his skills and experience.
Number of perceptions is made through the result of overview survey analysis and one to one interaction between worker, supervisor and manager. Few findings are made and dispayed. There’s wide gap in communication and interface between manager and workers. The workers complain that supervisor and manager failt to solve effectively solve the reported issues related to safety problem.
Meanwhile, supervisors complains that the workers always bypass and neglect the safety instruction and the workers don’t welcome any implementation with respects to safety matter. When safety matters are not included in the main induction training course, almost 50% of workers don’t make out the fundamental of safety rules. Theres no authority given to safety officer or safety department personel to inform or punish undiscipline workers. Theres no reward system to anyone who is committed to wear PPE anf other safety rules.
Administration reacted that the workers annual evaluation didn’t include safety section. The workers have commitmer of wearing PPE during works is 60%. But most of the respondent detailed that the helmet and the earplugs given to workers are not comfort and suitable to them.
The facilities provided and the layout of work environment is one of the factors that change the behavior of manpower working within the division. The plant layout evaluation was analyse, change and adjusted to suit the existing challenges in packing/finishing department. Figure shows the cause and effect diagram related to safety in platation problem with respects to plant layout and facilities.
It is observed from the responses to the surveys related to plant layout and facilities, it is observed that there is great rating to flow of material, material handling and storage arrangement in the packing/finishing line. On the other hand, exceptionally very low rating to utilities and service provided to production workers. It’s clear from the overview and worker reactions and response to the questionnaire that poor ventilation and high temperature are major problems and which have awful and bad impact on the safety health and performance workers.
In analyzing any related issue one continuously examine any defected parts. Since in the study objective is to decrease the level of safety hazards, in such case one should investigate the injured persons, body parts affected and tyoe of injuries. The fishbone FIGURE presents the reason behind the type of injuries. After further investigation, hand injured cases the most recorded case in packing/finishing line.
Improvement and Control Phase
According to the sig sigma methods ,since the root cause or basic components for safety risks are distinguished, one should recommend the arrangement to reduce the mistake that would jeopardize the cost, credibility and the operation of company and strategies ought to be decided. The suggested root causes of these critical components are documented and go through discussion with the managers of company. The recommended improvement are however yet to be actualized, but management agreed to actuialize and implent as soon as possible. The few changes improvement recommended are :
a) Safety course should be included during induction training
b) Annonce the reward system to anyone who is committed to PPE and safety regulations
c) The worker’s annual assessment must have a safety evaluation section
d) Initiate the safety audits regularly
e) Improve the communication between Manager and workers so that the message related or pertaining to safety issues is transferred successfully
f) Documentation for any investigation of near miss, safety hazard found with elaboration pertaining to safety issues,
g) Safety and Health committee discussion related to any safety and health matter
To minimize the accident rates, property loss, control methods are needed. The solutions as presented in the which includes :
a) Safety arrangements
b) Authoritative arrangement
c) Suggestion to improve cooperation between Department of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH), employers and employees through safety related program, statutory inspection or in house training course
These control plans are as it is to sustain the improvements. Particularly, the employers through the Safety and Health Committee member should conduct regular inspection and taking any opinions and view from workers for safey improvements. Any mishap or problems found should be discussed in Safety and Health Committee meeting. Meanwhile Safety and Health officer could get the review and advices from DOSH pertaining to company improvement plans on a month to month basis and statutory inspection of registered machinery in company
Conclusion
The critical factors have been identified. From quantitative method outlined by Six Sigma method we recognized the basic components from the survey as follows :
a) Lack of concentration at workplace
b) Ignorance to safety regulations
c) Tremendous variation to workers background
d) Failure of taking care of instrument/tools
From visuals perceptions the components watched are :
a) Carelesness of administration in giving and keeping up the facilities and utilities
b) Carelessness of workers in storage materials and tools
c) Carelessness of management displayed the safety rules
Thus the study illustrates the effectiveness of the Six Sigma DMAIC approach to reduce the safety hazards