Reflection – Learning Launch

Challenge

I am an engineer at Casting Plant in aluminium industry. My/Our challenge is to reduce  our product, which is aluminium billet, defect in order to decrease reject rate from to  reach our KPI’s department. The project scope includes the Casting Section, Reduction  Section, and Maintenance Section, with whom we work closely. The project is limited to  internal resources (i.e., budget and employee time). The project should not exceed 3  months and the solution should include an even distribution of working hours amongst  the team members. We will focus on trying to find and solve problem that obstructs our  operational from our internal (Casting Section) and other sections.

Selection

Our team has already gone through several design thinking activities/tools, so we are  ready to try the learning launch tool. Broadly speaking, the learning launch is an  experiment meant to quickly test an idea and prototype.

Application

For our first learning launch, we focused on finding root cause that affected to our defect  product. After finding what our root causes are, we focused to solve problems from our  internal section. We collect operational data, brainstorming with operators and team  leader, and our machine maker/supplier to be analyze then we get operational standard  to optimize the quality of products. Next, we socialize the operational standard/quality  control sheet to all 4 team leaders and 20 operators to use this standard in the field. We  encourage all members to going extra miles so we can reach our goal: reduce defect of  aluminium billet product. In one month, our reject rate decreases from 12.7% to 5.28%. It  is a significant result but we know that we still can go further.

For our second learning launch, we focused on get support from related section:  Reduction Section and Maintenance Section. We discussed and brainstormed about what  still causes this defect. With an open mind and acknowledge each other's lacks, other  related section committed to give the best support that they can do to help us reduce our

defect. Reduction Section committed to prioritized the molten which is our main material  to be charge on time every batch. Maintenance Section committed to give minor  maintenance every 20x batches to our casting table and major maintenance every 60x  batches. In 1 month, our reject rate can decrease to 4.28% and the next month our reject  rate is 2.43%.

Insight

By applying the learning launch tool, our team identified our assumptions and designed  launches to test these assumptions. Additionally, we thought through anticipated results,  expecting to find that a more agile approach would improve our workflow, and that both  our team and the key stakeholders would be fairly open to the new prioritization of tasks  and process.

