Malcolm
Baldrige National Quality Award 1991 Recipient
Building on these accomplishments and using the Baldrige Award principles, Zytec is now realigning its continuous-improvement system, investing in computer-integrated manufacturing technology, and furthering employee training, all with the aim of advancing to a new threshold of quality performance -- Six Sigma quality in most facets of its operations by 1995. ZYTEC:
A SNAPSHOT When it began operating independently in 1984 following a leveraged buy out, Zytec depended almost entirely on orders from one of its former owners, which now account for less than 1.5 percent of revenues. In 1990, product sales to 20 customers -- 18 of which have made Zytec a sole-source supplier -- totaled $50 million. The repair business, the largest of its kind in the United States, generated $5.8 million in additional revenues. "TOTAL
QUALITY COMMITMENT" To foster a common quality focus and to ensure that all 33 of its departments move in step to meet ever more demanding customer requirements, Zytec has adopted an interactive "Management By Planning" (MBP) process that involves employees in setting long-term and annual improvement goals.
Coordination and integration
also are hallmarks of the way Zytec carries out its plans. Design and
development of new products, for example, are carried out by interdepartmental
teams, which are assigned to projects from start to finish. Working closely
with customers, the same cross-functional management teams review performance
at four key stages: predesign initiation, design initiation, prototype
delivery and testing, and preproduction certification. The teams are Zytec is a data-driven company, developing meaningful, measurable criteria for evaluating performance at all levels. In addition, benchmarking competitors' products and services as well as the practices of acknowledged quality leaders in other industries provides Zytec with a clear picture of what it takes to achieve industry- or world-best status in key areas, from employee involvement to just-in-time manufacturing to supplier management. To realize the full advantage of its employees, Zytec trains them in analytical and problem-solving methods -a major focus of the 72 hours of quality-related instruction received by most Zytec employees. Workers are expected to use this knowledge as their authority and responsibilities grow. Several departments are directed by self-managed teams of workers. Zytec's production workers are encouraged to improve their knowledge and flexibility through an innovative employee evaluation and reward system called MFE -- Multi-Functional Employee program. Through MFE, employees are rewarded for the number of job skills that they acquire. By aligning all elements of quality improvement -- human, technological, and informational -- with customer priorities, Zytec has made the most significant performance gains in the areas that count the most. Product quality, as derived from customer-supplied data on failures, has risen to the four-sigma range, putting it on track for Six Sigma quality by 1995. Since 1988, the mean-time-between-failure of a Zytec power supply has increased to over 1,000,000 hours as measured by actual field data and reliability testing, and from 1989 to 1990, the company's on-time delivery rate improved from 85 to 96 percent.
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