client

Component Spacing

Challenge:

Engineers were tasked with creating electronic circuits that have more functionality and take-up less space. Component spacing became an issue because the closer components are located to each other the harder it is to manufacture them. It is necessary to find a manufacturing process where the components will stay centered.

ASI Solution:

ASI Consulting Group used Robust Optimization techniques to test the manufacturing process and ensure that component spacing would not be an issue for failure. The optimized design reduced position variable by over 32%.

Achieved Benefit:

The new process design for component spacing allowed for smaller circuit boards. Smaller circuit boards are cheaper and lighter.

Changing Product Development Culture

Challenge:

An Asian automotive OEM was Number 8 in sales worldwide. The CEO of the company announced it is targeting its position to become No. 5 worldwide. In order to accomplish this objective, the company’s executive VP of Engineering recognized a need to change its product development culture to produce higher quality and more reliable automobiles.

ASI Solution:

Tackling the challenge of changing the product development culture at the company, ASI Consulting Group conducted full 4-week project oriented Design for Six Sigma Black Belt training, with all sixty technical directors of the company. DFSS projects were carefully selected, and assigned to each of the Black Belt candidates.

Achieved Benefit:

We successfully implemented programs that began changing product development culture, but we also sustained the change with additional efforts. After the first wave of projects was completed, the average cost saving per project was approximated as $1.0 million. Besides substantial cost reductions, the company rapidly developed a DFSS culture within its engineering community.

Battery Analysis

Challenge:

Nickel cadmium rechargeable batteries were used for an entire class of NASA observatory spacecraft. Optimum levels of onboard spacecraft battery operation performance were determined to extend the life of these batteries and thus the life of the NASA spacecraft. Several spacecraft NiCd battery anomalies occurred that drastically affected spacecraft life. This promoted the need to initiate studies and analysis in order to establish an operations management protocol for these batteries. Standard full factorial studies would have taken 11 years to complete.

ASI Solution:

The solution went much further than battery analysis. ASI Consulting Group designed a test to optimize the design for robustness with Robust Optimization strategies.

Achieved Benefit:

The results of the application of the Robust Optimization strategies increased the quality of the battery analysis. It assisted the power subsystem and battery analysis experts in determining the appropriate protocol for flight NiCd operations management for various current and future missions. Results obtained using the old way of performing battery operations management were compared to the results using the Robust Optimization approach. The new approach resulted in cost savings of over 400% and over 300% reduction in experimental time. At the same time it improved battery voltage performance over 96%.

 

Advanced Air Fan

Challenge:

Development of a new advanced air fan system used for cooling was stalling. After 18 months of development work, the team had not determined how to design the fan to meet the new, higher requirements for performance. With six (6) months left before production, the team leader suggested using Robust Engineering.

ASI Solution:

After our fast analysis of the advanced air fan development plan, ASI Consulting Group recommended that the client implement Robust Engineering methodology developed by ASI’s founder, Dr. Genichi Taguchi.

Achieved Benefit:

The Final design was completed on time for pre-production testing and surpassed the new requirements for performance. Warranty data was 68% less than the earlier design. Knowledge gained from the engagement has been applied to four (4) other vehicle lines and is being applied to the next generation product.

 

Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education

Challenge:

The accreditation of medical residency programs can be slow and time-consuming. Since the accreditation process must involve hospital staff and doctor volunteers, it is critical to maximize their utilization in the accreditation process in order to avoid wasting their valuable time.

ASI Solution:

ASI Consulting Group reviewed the accreditation group’s 27 core offerings to determine which offering, if improved, would provide the most leverage to the organization. After listening to both the leadership and the available data, ASI identified the Internal Medicine Residency accreditation process as the best place to start.

Achieved Benefits:

Cycle time was reduced by 114 days, a 25% improvement. The original process took, on average, 1 year and three months to complete. The improved process took 11 months. Work time within the process was reduced by 56 hours, a 30% reduction. The original process took, on average, 187 hours of work time; the improved, 131 hours. The number of process steps was reduced by 16%.

 

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