Shainin and Six Sigma-Lean at Kavlico

Our vision at Kavlico is to be the world’s leading sensor manufacturer by providing superior customer value. To achieve this, we have a strategy that encompasses setting goals, defining our values, having high performance expectations; understanding and analyzing the industry environment, assessing and developing our resources and capabilities as well as optimizing our organizational structure and management system.

What is Shainin?

Shainin is all about problem solving and prevention in manufacturing environments. The purpose of Shainin implementation revolves around three basic principles; improving product performance, improving product reliability, and improving process performance via investigative strategies.

Using Shainin allows companies, such as Kavlico, to discover and find problems early in the design phase – reducing the potential for costly manufacturing issues as well as minimizing the risks of incurring customer field failures.

Shainin helps to:

Resolve urgent problems
Optimizes business processes and value streams
Empowers individuals with Shainin capabilities

Kavlico’s REDX program has produced a REDX Master, several REDX Master candidates, as well as a significant number of REDX Journeymen and Apprentices.

What is Six Sigma-Lean?

Kavlico Six Sigma-Lean Diagram: Define, Expecations, Analyze, Improve, Control

In order to compete successfully within a particular industry or market, companies must establish an advantage over the competition through the successful execution of a business strategy. Six Sigma-Lean represents one of Kavlico’s key business strategies to increase our competitive advantage. It is applied to all business processes through the completion of projects that improve our cost leadership, customer satisfaction, and differentiation.

Six Sigma-Lean enables our employees to work on projects within a functional area, or work in cross-function teams to improve business processes that cross the functional boundaries of workgroups. It is a well-structured continuous improvement system that helps us focus on developing and delivering world-class products and services. The central idea behind Six Sigma-Lean is to reduce all types of wastes, optimize processes, and solve problems through completing projects.

Kavlico has certified Master Black Belts and several certified Black Belts and Green Belts across the organization in various functional areas. There is a full-time Black Belt Team that continuously works on key business projects and serves as Six Sigma-Lean mentors to the entire organization. Top management regularly reviews the progress of key business projects with the Six Sigma steering committee in order to verify and support the success of the program.