Lean : An Arena of Opportunities for Business Sturdiness

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consummate entity that designs and manufactures innovative and cost-effective advanced optical inspection equipment and system-on-chip embedded electronics devices for the semiconductor and electronics packaging industries. They offer solutions for the manufacturers to replace or complement manual inspections and measurements that can increase production speed and yield, reduce reject rate at the production line as well as improve product quality. Since its establishment in 2000, the corporation has served more than 255 customers ranging from semiconductor Outsourced Assembly and Test (OSAT) companies, printed circuit board manufacturers and electronics assemblies companies. Not only that, they also serve the Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM), Original Design Manufacturers (ODM), Electronics Manufacturing Services (EMS) providers and Contract Manufacturers (CM). About 85 percent of the products are produced to cater the demands of the export market including China, Taiwan, Japan, India, United States, Europe, South America, Mexico and Brazil.

ViTrox strongly believes in their employees as employees are the sole reason in bringing success to the corporation. Significantly, ViTrox places a great emphasis on embedding a humanistic culture, emphasising core values of integrity, accountability, courage, trust & respect as well as gratitude & care (I.A.C.T.G). Moreover, they are pleased to provide facilities and infrastructures which intend to create a humanistic environment in the industrial park. These initiatives are essential in instilling the concept of ‘My ViTrox, My Home’ among their 430 employees. These initiatives are instilled not only for the employees to achieve goals and targets but at the same time inspire them in working as a family. Additionally, ViTrox believes in Lean as activities carried out through Lean have made fruitful improvements. Steps involved in the process of sales until deliveries have been improvised tremendously to ensure ViTrox remains strong-willed in their respective field. This not only helps to reduce the cost but also improves lead and waiting time that ultimately increase the internal as well as external customer satisfaction.

“Our top Management is a true believer of Lean. They strongly advocate that approaches through Lean will excel the company in the future. Lean was introduced in 2010, after a decade of the company’s establishment. Our intention is to provide an excellent customer experience as we not only have an array of great inspection machines

We launched Lean to achieve goals in P.Q.C.D.S.M, namely Productivity, Quality, Cost, Delivery, Safety and Morale through bringing all our employees together year by year.”

—- Casey

The emergence of developments in manufacturing technologies has brought numerous benefits in improving the positions of entities in their respective fields. In addition to that, the rising of such technologies help to shift priorities in the business allowing them to focus on more significant areas namely quality assurance, cost effectiveness and responsiveness to marketplace changes. In Malaysia, ViTrox Corporation Berhad is an example of a perfect

New horizons for improvement through Lean Lean is known for its ability in adding values to end products especially to meet customers’ needs as well as minimising otiose activities. These are the key reasons which assist manufacturers in achieving their targets and goals. Such approach leads companies that have adopted Lean in using lesser capital, space, time, materials and energy but at the same time deliver products at its finest. Not only that, these approaches encourage employees in thinking beyond the boundaries for improvement and ultimately creates a quantum leap for business sturdiness. Casey Ang Kua Cheng, the Director of Lean Deployment Function at ViTrox visualised all these positive projections by Lean and introduced its approaches in their working culture.

but we wanted to ensure that our internal processes among all our employees in every division are well connected and moving forward. Lean stands as a solution to increase business efficiency as it ensures our staff’s work time is spent on value-added activities.”

ViTrox uses Lean to examine business processes and focuses on minimising unnecessary costs, reducing waste and improving inefficient procedures. Casey further explained that “Lean is used to standardise our work processes and every time we improved the processes, we included the new procedure into our Quality Management System. Not only that, this entity has also trained our first-tier suppliers on Lean to encourage them in implementing the Kanban system in their workplace.” “We conduct training sessions on Visual Stream Mapping (VSM) concept and seven wastes of Lean. We want our suppliers to embark on this initiative as it will provide them a picture of our requirements towards efficiency and cost effectiveness. In addition to all these, Lean has assisted us in having a better flow of raw materials.” On average, after the implementation of Lean, ViTrox has managed to improve productivity by 30 percent annually. In fact, Lean has brought down reject rate by at least 10 to 20 percent as well as 10 percent reduction in product cost and lead time of inventory holding on a yearly basis. This indicates that Lean helps ViTrox in simplifying its processes so that they can be more productive and ultimately gain better operating profits.

Embedding a new working culture to accelerate transformation brought by Lean It is an undeniable fact that employees are the backbone of ViTrox in ensuring the success of Lean. Most of their staff are local skilled employees and this makes it rather easier in introducing core values of I.A.C.T.G in developing the right culture towards driving the Lean transformation. Casey pointed out that the core values of Integrity, Accountability, Courage, Trust & Respect and Gratitude & Care have successfully changed its people to surface out any problems related to downstream or upstream processes throughout the company. “We really put a lot of efforts when we first introduced the core values to our people. This was in 2010, the same year that we launched the Lean campaign. We spent a lot of time in cultivating the values and avoid being hasty in introducing Lean tools and methodologies. This was to ensure our people are more open to share problems and improve any relevant issues at ViTrox. We strongly encourage them to speak out and talk about constraints at work place so they could find solutions to excel.” Casey further added that “Now, when a problem rises, they have acquired the skill to look at it as an opportunity to improve and help each other. The CEO : Gemba Walk which is carried out every two weeks is another example which has successfully encouraged staff from all levels to share their work

constraints with the CEO himself. We have also designed a system known as MyVoice that serves as a platform to capture ideas from the staff. In fact, we also reward the best suggestion on a quarterly basis.” Apart from that, trust and respect remain as a fundamental to unite all staff as one family at ViTrox. The top management leads by example and they are willing to invest in manifesting dreams of employees in achieving goals and targets towards the progress of ViTrox. Casey said, "Our slogan, 'My ViTrox, My Home' is intended to create a 'home' at workplace as we have provided facilities and infrastructures to promote a comfortable working environment. We have established several volunteers and interest clubs for our staff to share their hobbies and this serves as a platform in organising charity works as well. We have also implemented 5S housekeeping activity at our workstation on every Friday. These measures have brought employees closer and foster a sense of belonging at work place.” This culture of openness in sharing work challenges, willingness to cooperate for improvement, working as a family and possessing a sense of belonging have eased the transformation of Lean at ViTrox. Staff are always looking for opportunities in using the approaches brought by Lean to provide the best solutions as a whole.

5S (every Friday)

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Inculcating Lean into daily work processes A lot of trainings were conducted in educating all employees on the basic knowledge of Lean concept after the launching of the Lean initiative campaign. These procedures were carried out at an early stage of the implementation. The trainings also comprised knowledge in the VSM approach, Lean tools & methodology and LEAN problem solving approach. This served as a significant part in ensuring employees are familiar with all the techniques involved in Lean. These trainings have guided all their staff to execute the Lean Problem Solving (LPS) steps in implementing any Lean project. A Lean problem solving template/form is made available at every meeting room, so all the staff use the appropriate tool that allows them to achieve the best results. The Lean project can be carried out individually or in groups based on the criticality of the problem. In fact, a 30 percent score is included in the staff’s annual performance-based assessment that monitors the contribution of ideas and implementation of solutions among the staff. Nevertheless, there is no limitation on the quantity of Lean projects that should be completed by a respective staff within a year. ViTrox focuses more on the quality of the Lean project rather than quantity of the project implementation. The Lean Deployment Function (LDF) Unit was established in 2010 as the sole unit that is responsible in promoting culture brought by Lean at ViTrox. Not only that, the unit is also accountable to validate all the completed Lean projects based on the LPS criteria and provides recommendation for improvement if projects don’t meet criteria set by LPS. He emphasised that the unit acts as a facilitator and a focal point of references when it comes to the implementation of Lean. “This is the best way in ensuring all staff have adopted and implemented LEAN in their daily operations. Our achievements and commitment in Lean has promoted LDF a step further to take lead of cross functional Lean projects that involve more than two business departments. LDF also plays a crucial role in implementing key strategies for improvement that are determined during the HOSHIN strategic planning session.”

LDF’s Interactive website for Lean visibility LDF makes more efforts by developing an interactive Lean website for internal utilisation. This is a continuous effort on promoting the culture adhered by Lean at ViTrox as this corporation will undoubtedly expand with an outnumbered staff in the future. This is a platform that provides information on Lean know how, 5S housekeeping activities and videos on Lean initiatives that are subscribed from Gemba Academy.

Casey stated that “We have analysed the lead and waiting time involved in each business unit which starts from the placement of orders until the final process of product delivery. Following that, we came up with a comprehensive VSM to demonstrate on the flow and time taken of each process. We further enhanced the VSM diagram by adding up potential areas that need to be improved in maximising achievements by Lean.” “This has significantly guided our staff to determine the most relevant area to improve when they want to embark on Lean projects. VSM is available at the website and has made our processes more transparent to everyone. By doing so, our staff have realised that their work is interconnected with each other and Lean has broken the functional silos as everyone is starting to do the best in enhancing the progress of the entity as a whole.” “In fact, we also provide interactive chat room in the website as another communication tool in ensuring Lean keeps the community at ViTrox close. We have become more creative in cultivating Lean culture as we believe that Lean is able to bring a sustainable profit margin to our business.”

He encourages other organisations to learn, adapt and implement LEAN towards attaining superior performance. “My passion for Lean is what keeps me going till to date. The supports and commitment of the CEO serve as a catalyst in pacing the Lean implementation while the core values of I.A.C.T.G have eased my unit in bringing all staff together towards achieving goals set by Lean in improving P.Q.C.D.S.M. This is exactly how ViTrox is able to produce high quality inspection machines while minimising cost and wastes in the production plant,” he concluded.

LEAN Management System

Commencement of customer feedback boosts satisfaction and increase loyal customers.

Establish goals through LEAN on improving P.Q.C.D.S.M.

Equip employees with JIDAKO tools in creating a culture of uplifting opportunities.

Train employees with JUST IN TIME tools to ensure they adhere to the step-by-step Lean Problem Solving (LPS) requirements.

Employees’ involvement in problem solving at workplace guided by JIDOKA and JUST IN TIME techniques.

Standardise work processes on a regular basis through approaches brought by Lean.

Sustain work processes using 5S, VSM and LPS.

Example of LEAN project :

The use of VSM in

visualising each process involved in store kitting

A medium to share problems

among other team members Set an

improvement target

Using root cause

analysis to identify factors contributing to

the problem

Identifying solutions and conducting

pilot test for each solution

A platform to verify and

follow up on each solution

Implementation of the best solutions

derived from results

After Lean : the store

kitting process has improved from 4 days to

1 day

Solutions :

1. Restructure part storage in the store based on size and types of the part

2. Use zipper bag to keep parts which eliminates staple / taping on packaging process

3. Design a new kitting trolley to ease the process of sorting parts

Improving store kitting process