Manufacturing Technology Academy

Location: 2600 Aero Park Dr.

Mailing address: 880 Parsons Road
Traverse City, MI 49686
Phone: (231)995-1304 Fax: (231)995-2204
Website: www.mta.tc
February 20, 2014


Mike Groleau
RJG Incorporated
3111 Park Drive
Traverse City, MI 49686



Dear Mr. Groleau:

The following report is our documented study of the issue you presented to us while at RJG
Incorporated. Our team from the Manufacturing Technology Academy (MTA) would like to
thoroughly thank you and your employees for letting us have this experience.

This report contains the tools from the Plan Do Study Act (PDSA) process that we used to try
and work out your issue. We would like to thank Roger Case for showing us the entire assembly
of your part. This was an excellent opportunity for us to experience how this problem-solving
process is used in the workforce.

Thank you, again, for letting us visit your company and for the experience. You can contact us
with any questions you may have.

Sincerely,


Rick Foster Bailey Proctor Lucas Page Dayton Clark Isaac Russell






Design Improvements for the
Multichannel Strain Gage

February 20, 2014

Prepared For:
RJG Incorporated
3111 Park Drive
Traverse City, MI 49686



Prepared by:
Bailey Proctor, Isaac Russell, Dayton Clark,
Rick Foster, and Lucas Page




Manufacturing Technology Academy
2600 Aero Park Drive
Traverse City, MI 49686



Executive Summary
Students at the Manufacturing Technology Academy (MTA) are taught about the Plan,
Do, Study, Act method (PDSA), during the two day Teams Training class. The PDSA process is
a problem-solving technique that makes use of a variety of charts, known as tools. These tools
help find the root cause of a problem, as well as leading to the right ideas to solve it.
After the Teams Training class, groups of five students were assigned to a company with
a problem that was causing some kind of kink in their process. A group of students were
assigned to RJG, to help with the design of their Multichannel Strain Gage that was taking an
undesirably large amount of time to assemble. The team was taken on a tour of RJGs entire
facility, taking notes and learning the ins and outs of the plant. The team wrote down any
questions they had, and after the tour, began creating their initial charts.
The students started the PDSA process with a Parking Lot, showing what the team had
learned about the process, but more importantly, what they hadnt. The team stepped out RJGs
process in a Systems Analysis, and after that created a tool known as an Affinity Diagram to help
them list all of the questions they had for the company. The students created a Problem
Statement from what the company had given to them, and created multiple charts, such as a Bone
Diagram, to make sure they understood the current situation at RJG. They later went to watch
the entire assembly process of the part. The team recorded the time it took to assemble the part,
and how long each individual section took. With this information, the team was able to create a
detailed Flow Chart, showing each step of the process. The students took the major sections
from the Flow Chart and put them into a Bar Graph, helping them to distinguish the time taken
on each section of the assembly.
The team decided that they were ready to try to determine the cause of the time issues,
and started working with charts that helped them find the root cause. The team created a color-
coded Spider Diagram to categorize the known problems and causes. This was followed by a
Revised Problem Statement that had the data that they gathered within it. The students
brainstormed potential causes for the time issues that had not yet been mentioned, and created a
list of those causes. From that list, the team created an Interrelationship Diagram to show how
each cause related to the others on the list, leading to the root cause of the problem.
The students used a Five Why diagram to finalize their choice of the root cause, and they
decided they were ready to start thinking about recommendations. They listed any ideas for
recommendations on sticky notes and pasted them onto an Imagineering Chart. This chart helped
them pick the best recommendations for RJG. When they decided on which to recommend, they
created a revised flow chart, bar graph, and a potential design the team used to help them
describe their recommendations.


Table of Contents
Plan:
Introduction......1
Purpose.....1
Define the Problem
Parking Lot...1
System Analysis...2
Initial Affinity.......3
Questions Affinity4
State the Goals
Initial Problem Statement.5
Operational Definitions5
Bone Diagram......6
Study the Current Situation
Original Design.....7
Initial Flow Chart......................................................................................................8
Current Bar Graph.........9
Spider Diagram....10
Define the Problem
Revised Problem Statement.11
Potential Causes...11
Analyze the Causes
Interrelationship Diagram...12
Five Why13
Do:
Theory of Improvement
Imagineering.......14
Recommended Design15
Revised Flowchart..16
Recommended Assembly Bar Graph......17
Conclusion:
Conclusion...17
Work Cited..18
Appendix.19