Lean Sigma

Delivering Value

When it comes to value, every company faces the same challenge - obtaining value from suppliers, and delivering it to customers and shareholders. In today's economy, these challenges are even more pressing as the need to keep ahead of the technology curve and provide customers with leading-edge products collides with the goal of managing costs and delivering on shareholder expectations. Faced with these conflicting demands, many leading original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are seeking to partner with an electronics manufacturing services (EMS) provider that understands their need to provide and receive value. Many of these OEMs are discovering that HiTEM, with its deep commitment to the Supplier Excellence Alliance Lean Enterprise System and Six Sigma principles, is their best source for such value.

Leveraging Lean

Lean is an improvement system involving all employees that continuously pursues the elimination of waste (in all activities that transform a product or service) with the ultimate goal of providing industry-leading performance in quality, delivery and service to customers at the lowest possible cost. See http://www.seaonline.org/ for more information.

Waste - defects, overproduction, transportation, waiting, inventory, motion, processing and unused creativity - is at the root of all unprofitable activity. HiTEM provides customer value by eliminating waste and delivering electronics manufacturing and related services in the most cost-effective and efficient way possible. We achieve this by:

• raising the level of awareness surrounding the benefits of implementing Lean and Six Sigma principles;
• creating a foundation on which to apply those principles;
• facilitating their application and implementation across our operations and through the supply chain; and
• encouraging all employees to take ownership of workplace and process improvements.

Combined with our focus to deliver Six Sigma quality, HiTEM's Lean efforts elevate the rate of continuous improvement in our operations, improving our cost-competitiveness and effectiveness as an EMS partner, and increasing our ability to deliver value.

The Tools of Lean

The goal of Lean is to move from “current state” to the, so-called, “future state” of optimal performance at which all activity adds only value to the product and truly meets customer requirements in terms of quality, delivery and cost.

HiTEM utilizes a variety of principles and tools from its Lean playbook to achieve this - including Six Sigma, which focuses on continous improvement and quality. Lean serves as the basis for our ongoing efforts to simplify internal processes and reduce operational inefficiencies through the elimination of non-value-added activities.

Lean improvement tools can be used collectively or discretely to deliver Lean concepts and ensure a sustainable system within the future state. Lean tools include:

• Six Sigma initiatives to decrease process variation.
• Cellular layout to reduce material handling, improve communication and facilitate single piece, continuous flow manufacturing.
• Line change-over time reduction to enable smaller lot sizes.
• Pull system manufacturing to manage material replenishment issues.
• Cross-training to enable workforce flexibility.
• Line stop/escalation processes to reduce defects.
• Six Sigma projects to decrease process variation.
• Visual management systems for improved communication, parts management and monitoring.
• Ownership and program support by the site leadership team.

These tools enable us to deliver value to our customers with ever-increasing agility, execution excellence, predictability and cost-efficiency.

Your Lean Partner

HiTEM's commitment to eliminating waste, empowering employees and focusing on continuous improvement enables us to create efficiency in all areas of our business and create a standard for Lean and Six Sigma best practices that helps us to maintain our position as an industry leader.

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