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SIX SIGMA CASE STUDY (PORVAIR/QUALTEC)

February, 2002

First appearing in The Manufacturer

Six Sigma Success


Porvair has made an excellent start with six sigma and achieved a 150 per cent return on investment within 18 months. The Porvair factory in Wrexham employs 80 staff at its 55,000 sq ft facility, and when the decision was taken to implement six sigma, an investment of £50,000 was made in training through the Six Sigma Qualtec open enrolment programmes. Manufacturing director Nigel Bright explained: "The driver behind our choice to use six sigma was to find a way of improving things consistently, without high levels of personal input."

The first phase of implementation at Porvair was the introduction of key performance indicators (KPIs). This led to a marked improvement in delivery performance, up from 50 per cent to 90-95 per cent and labour efficiency up from 45 per cent to 85 per cent. Nigel Bright and Porvair Group CEO Ben Stocks saw that improvement only as a start. "We needed a proven methodology which involved the capability of our excellent staff teams at every level. Six sigma fitted with that," said Bright. That is also of interest to other Porvair sites in UK and the USA.

In Wrexham, Porvair makes filters for medical, food, air, water and automotive applications and for industrial use where filter performance matters. The market is very competitive with a few well-known suppliers. Some are very much larger than the Porvair Wrexham operation. But being a supplier that has taken six sigma on board, and the only one to do so, is a distinct advantage. "That alone makes becoming as ‘six sigma company’ very rewarding," says Nigel Bright.
Porvair’s first black belt project not only paid for all of the company’s six sigma training, but also solved serious production problems. The project also converted a number of key players to six sigma and was the launch pad for company-wide commitment to six sigma techniques. Previously, Porvair had relied on enthusiastic trial and error to improve processes or to solve problems, which used up valuable resources without contributing a reliable solution. "Six sigma was brilliant. The six sigma approach and its analytical tools meant that we drilled down to the real causes of variation," said Nigel Bright.

The project eliminated the impact of input variation and gave a durable, dependable and reliable process. The six sigma resource is now at work on other Porvair black belt projects to which operators are also contributing excellent process improvement ideas that include new layouts. Standard cost was reduced by up to a third and waste is down by 92 per cent. For Nigel Bright and his team, the project really proved the value of Qualtec’s ‘Gauge R&R’ analysis, even as an ISO company. Porvair eliminated variation in different operators’ reading of a meniscus. The project also showed that, as a smaller company faced with batch variation from small supply quantities, real solutions were available with six sigma. This enables Porvair to compete as well, and potentially better than, its competition by supplying cost-effective solutions from highly capable processes with tightly controlled variation.

This first project was completed in 12 months. The second project will yield savings of £50,000 and a third, completed after just 16 months of training, will deliver £102,000.


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