Welingkar institute of Management Development and Research, Mumbai

Six Sigma and Triz

Applications in the Wine making industry

Index

Abstract.........................................................................................................................................3

PART I..........................................................................................................................................5

1.1 What is Six Sigma?......................................................................................................5

1.2 How does Six Sigma work?.........................................................................................5

1.3 What is TRIZ?..............................................................................................................7

1.4 TRIZ tools....................................................................................................................8

1.5 Overcoming Lack of Solution Location......................................................................8

1.6 Integration of I-TRIZ and Six Sigma methodologies generally leads to significantly 9

2 PART II..............................................................................................................................10

2.1 Application of six sigma & TRIZ to make non alcoholic wine, without compromising its medicinal properties...................................................................................10

2.2 The need for TRIZ.....................................................................................................11

2.3 Application of TRIZ principles..................................................................................12

2.4 End result...................................................................................................................16

2.5 Cost – Benefit Analysis.............................................................................................17

3 Conclusion..........................................................................................................................17

Abstract

Executive Summary:

Six Sigma stands for Six Standard Deviations (Sigma is the Greek letter used to

represent standard deviation in statistics) from mean. Six Sigma methodology provides

the techniques and tools to improve the capability and reduce the defects in any existing

process.

TRIZ is an established science, methodology, set of tools, and knowledge- and

model-based technology for stimulating and generating innovative ideas and solutions

from previously existing solutions of similar problems in different fields.

The paper focuses on finding solution to problem of making a low alcohol

content wine for children to make use of the substances beneficial to the human health.

The limitations of Six Sigma process.

There are often significant delays in Six Sigma projects and intermediate

deliveries. One of the most frequent reasons is decision-making errors that lead to

rework and time-consuming data collection activities. Various such problems are found

in each step of the six sigma approach. For e.g., the problems found in the design and

identification phase of Six Sigma application process are:

Define/Identify Phases

Poor project selection and/or problem formulation

Non-exhaustive list of potential directions for change and/or for innovation

Originally, TRIZ process was used for the manufacturing process. But now, the

methodology of TRIZ has been expanded to the more non-technological areas to help

minimise the limitations of the Six Sigma methodologies.

Integration of I-TRIZ and Six Sigma methodologies generally leads to

significantly:

Increased effectiveness of Six Sigma deployments, especially in small and

medium business units.

Increased efficiency in terms of reduced life-cycle time and resources used, as

well as higher ROI of Six Sigma projects.

Reduced or avoided "expensive" errors in decision making, especially at the

early stages of the deployment (i.e. Define or Identify phase).

Reduced Cost of Poor Quality of Six Sigma due to the rework (i.e. repeated

and/or redundant measurements, etc.).

Increased Roll Throughput Yield of Six Sigma projects especially at the

Improve/Design phase (i.e. percent of Innovative Competitive

Solutions/Amount of Collected Ideas).

Approach for the paper

The purpose of the paper is to improvise the six sigma process applied on the

Wine making process using the TRIZ principles for the following problem.

The problem faced by the industry is that “Dry wines contain substances

beneficial to human health; however, they cannot be given to children. The alcohol can

be evaporated from the wine by boiling, but the high temperatures destroy the

beneficial substances in the wine.”

Our approach to improve the process would be applying the 40 principles of

TRIZ to the wine making process. The solution for the problem was found in the

principles of physics using which used the concepts of pressure which are entirely

outside the boundaries of wine making process.

Conclusion

Looking for solutions for problems faced in the wine making industry in other

industries helped find the solution to problem faced by the wine makers.

PART I

1.1 WHAT IS SIX SIGMA?

Six-Sigma is a revolutionary business process designed to significantly reduce

organizational inefficiencies thereby increasing bottom-line profits. The concept is to

eliminate defects that take time and effort to repair, not to mention make customers

unhappy. It is a management philosophy that eliminates defects by emphasizing

understanding, measuring and improving processes.

It is important to recall that every customer always values consistent and

predicable services and/or products with near zero defects. Therefore they experience

the variation and not the mean. Mean is their expectation or our target. If we can

measure process variations that cause defects i.e. unacceptable deviation from the mean

or target, we can work towards systematically managing the variation to eliminate

defects. Six Sigma is a methodology focused on creating breakthrough improvements

by managing variation and reducing defects in processes across the enterprise.

1.2 HOW DOES SIX SIGMA WORK?

The driving force behind any Six Sigma project comes from its primary focus -

"bringing breakthrough improvements in a systematic manner by managing

variation and reducing defects". This requires us to ask tougher questions, raise the

bar significantly, and force people to think out of the box and to be innovative. The

objective is to stretch, stretch mentally and not physically. To make this journey

successful there is a methodology(s) to support Six Sigma implementations.

There are 2 potential scenarios –

a) There is already an existing process(s) that is working "reasonably" well and

b) There is no process at all. A bad process is as good as no process.

Scenario (a) focuses on significant process improvements and requires use of DMAIC:

FIGURE 1: DMAIC PROCESS

1. Define process goals in terms of key critical parameters (i.e. critical to quality or

critical to production) on the basis of customer requirements or Voice Of Customer

(VOC)

2. Measure the current process performance in context of goals

3. Analyze the current scenario in terms of causes of variations and defects

4. Improve the process by systematically reducing variation and eliminating defects

5. Control future performance of the process

Scenario (b) focuses on process design using Design For Six Sigma (DFSS) approach.

DFSS typically requires IDOV:

1. Identify process goals in terms of critical parameters, industry & competitor

benchmarks, VOC

2. Design involves enumeration of potential solutions and selection of the best

3. Optimize performance by using advanced statistical modeling and simulation

techniques and design refinements

4. Validate that design works in accordance to the process goals

Sometimes a DMAIC project may turn into a DFSS project because the process in

question requires complete re-design to bring about the desired degree of improvement.

Such a discovery usually occurs during improvement phase of DMAIC.

1.3 WHAT IS TRIZ?

While there are many widely used design and development approaches such as

Quality Function Deployment, these show us what to solve but not always how to solve

the technology bottlenecks that arise. One technique, the Reviewed Dendrogram, relies

on the experience of designers which may be limited to certain areas of expertise such

as chemistry or electronics. Thus, a solution that might be simpler and cheaper using

magnetism could be missed. For example, a materials engineer searching for a

dampener may limit his search to rubber based materials. A more efficient solution

might lie in creating a magnetic field. Since this is outside the experience of the

engineer, how could he imagine such a solution? Using TRIZ i.e. Theory of Inventive

Problem Solving, he would be able to explore design solutions in fields other than his

own.

There are two kinds of problem solutions:

1. Applying from standard solutions

2. Inventive Problem.: with no known solution and may contain contradictory

requirements

The non-existence of a solution leads to what is called psychological inertia, where the

solutions being considered are within one's own experience(domain) and do not look at

alternative options to develop new concepts.

FIGURE 2:PSYCHOLOGICAL INERTIA

Example of psychological inertia

A problem in using artificial diamonds for tool making is the existence of invisible

fractures. Traditional diamond cutting methods often resulted in new fractures which

did not show up until the diamond was in use. What was needed was a way to split the

diamond crystals along their natural fractures without causing additional damage. A

method used in food canning to split green peppers and remove the seeds was used. In

this process, peppers are placed in a hermetic chamber to which air pressure is

increased to 8 atmospheres. The peppers shrink and fracture at the stem. Then the

pressure is rapidly dropped causing the peppers to burst at the weakest point and the

seed pod to be ejected. A similar technique applied to diamond cutting resulted in the

crystals splitting along their natural fracture lines with no additional damage.

1.4 TRIZ TOOLS

TRIZ has a set of general principles (40) that may be used to resolve the

contradiction in the system, based on observations collected from the analysis and

decomposition of patents. This analysis allows the practitioner to convert, by

abstraction, from the specific to the generic and allows the problem solver to take

advantage of the fact that elements of the problem in question have already been solved

by someone else.

Contradiction theory is the foundation of TRIZ. The abstraction of a generic

problem may be carried out by identifying the technical contradiction in the system

through the application of the 39 parameters or the establishment of a bi-polarity (A

and anti-A). The user may then apply the 40 inventive principles to assist the creation

of solution concepts. This process is conducted according to two four-step algorithms.

The identification of the contradiction in the system (in some cases there may be

several) is the root of problem solving using TRIZ. If the contradiction is hidden, or

confounded, TRIZ-based modeling techniques may be used to identify the

contradiction.

1.5 OVERCOMING LACK OF SOLUTION LOCATION

Six Sigma operates based on the assumption that the solution to a problem is

contained within the process under investigation. Six Sigma is very powerful when this

assumption is true as it enables the practitioners to identify the transfer function (Y = F

(X)) and control the output. In many cases the solution to the problem is not to be

found in the process and this inhibits the ability to identify the control variables. In this

case, a methodology that can solve the problem outside of the process boundaries, such

as the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ), is necessary. The successful

integration of TRIZ with Six Sigma can overcome any limitations originating from lack

of solution in the process space.

1.6 INTEGRATION OF I-TRIZ AND SIX SIGMA METHODOLOGIES GENERALLY LEADS TO SIGNIFICANTLY

Increased effectiveness of Six Sigma deployments, especially in small and

medium business units.

Increased efficiency in terms of reduced life-cycle time and resources used, as

well as higher ROI of Six Sigma projects.

Reduced or avoided "expensive" errors in decision making, especially at the

early stages of the deployment (i.e. Define or Identify phase).

Reduced Cost of Poor Quality of Six Sigma due to the rework (i.e. repeated

and/or redundant measurements, etc.).

Increased Roll Throughput Yield of Six Sigma projects especially at the

Improve/Design phase (i.e. percent of Innovative Competitive

Solutions/Amount of Collected Ideas).

Solution of the problem outside the problem domain.

2 PART II

2.1 APPLICATION OF SIX SIGMA & TRIZ TO MAKE NON ALCOHOLIC WINE, WITHOUT COMPROMISING ITS MEDICINAL PROPERTIES.

We have taken an example of the Six Sigma vineyards, Lake County, CA.

Unique to the wine industry, the name Six Sigma designates that the wine produced

here is of the best quality.

The owners of this vineyard are Kaj and Else Ahlmann. Kaj was a CEO of Employers

Reinsurance Corporation, a division of General Electric. Kaj had mastered the Six

Sigma techniques while working and progressing at General Electrics reinsurance

group. He knew the methods held great potential for winemaking. Hence he not only

employed Six Sigma in the vineyards and the winery, but also named the wines after it.

The general process of winemaking is as shown in Fig 3.

FIGURE 3:PROCESS OF WINE MAKING

They apply the DMAIC strategy to eliminate variability in the vinification process.

“We decide where we want to be, after that we make sure that our process ensures that

our wines meet that level of quality,” Kaj says. “We emphasize consistency, and

eliminate variation wherever it would affect quality.”

The data-driven principles of Six Sigma are employed, not only in the

winemaking process as such, but in all stages of the process, for example when they:

Conduct extensive analyses of soil, water and climate to find the most favorable

sites for our vineyards.

Choose rootstocks that thrive best in the soil composition of a given vineyard.

Meticulously prune vines to enhance the quality of grapes and to allow

consistent ripening.

Apply chemical and sensory analyses to pick the grapes at just the right time to

produce optimal flavor in the wine.

Listen to the voice of the customer - whether you are a sophisticated wine

drinker with well-defined preferences, a social wine drinker who knows what

you like and wants the security of consistency, or you just want a good place to

start.

The result of the above actions is the superior quality of wine that is produced,

with minimum wastage. Through it all, Ahlmann’s focus remains squarely on the most

important person in the winemaking process: the person who drinks it. Six Sigma

Ranch, Vineyards and Winery continues to learn about customers wants by soliciting

feedback and conducting voice of the customer projects. “That’s what Six Sigma is

really about,” Ahlmann says. “We want to understand what attracts a potential

customer and adds the most value, and then deliver it.”

2.2 THE NEED FOR TRIZ

For over 2 decades, research has indicated that moderate intake of alcohol

improves cardiovascular health. In fact, in 1992 Harvard researchers included moderate

alcohol consumption as one of the "eight proven ways to reduce coronary heart disease

risk." However, research has suggested that specifically red wine is the most

beneficial to your heart health. The cardio protective effect has been attributed to

antioxidants present in the skin and seeds of red grapes.

Scientists believe the antioxidants, called flavonoids, reduce the risk of coronary heart

disease in three ways:

By reducing production of low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol (also

know as the "bad" cholesterol)

By boosting high density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol (the good cholesterol)

By reducing blood clotting. Furthermore, consuming a glass of wine along with

a meal may favorably influence your lipid profiles following that meal.

Flavonoids could also induce mechanisms that may kill cancer cells and inhibit

tumor invasion.

Hence, it is suggested that to maintain your heart in a good condition, men

should consume one to two servings of red wine per day. Women should consume only

one serving per day to reap the maximum benefits.

This is where the Six Sigma ranch is facing a problem. What about those people

who do not consume alcohol? And what if the useful contents in the wine i.e.

flavonoids, saponins or resveratrol are to be administered to children?

Six sigma wineries can come up with a method of brewing wine which has

low/no on alcohol content, but which also has the useful contents like flavonoids,

saponins and resveratrol in the right quantity. For the production of this type of Wine,

the process for winemaking has to be completely reinvented.

2.3 APPLICATION OF TRIZ PRINCIPLES

FIGURE 4:TRIZ PROBLEM SOLVING TECHNIQUE

Known fact: The alcohol found in the red wine is ethanol. The boiling point of

wine is ~78.5˚C. The degradation point of flavonoids is reached at ~35˚C.

Out of the 40 principles of TRIZ mentioned in the paper, the following 9 can be

applied to the process of wine making for achieving the objective of reducing alcohol

content of wine.

TABLE 1:APPLICABLE TRIZ PRINCIPLES

Property

No.

Heading Implication

2 Taking Out The ingredient of wine(ethanol) is to be separated

from the rest of the wine. Different methods like

electrolysis, boiling, distillation, osmosis. can be

used for the same.

9 Preliminary anti

action

The boiling of the wine results in degradation of

the useful flavonoids in the wine. But reducing

the B.P. of the wine using pressure could be a

solution for it.

Distillation of wine requires additional licenses.

Hence, it is not feasible.

Osmosis, which uses pressure, is one feasible

process that can be used.

10 Preliminary action Determine how much pressure needs to be applied

on the wine so that maximum ethanol can be

removed from it, without affecting the physical and

chemical properties of wine.

11 Before hand

cushioning

Measures have to be taken to ensure that the temp of

the wine does not cross the degradation point of the

flavonoids. The heaters which are to be installed

should have sensors to detect the temperature of the

liquid and should also be equipped with automatic.

13 The other way

round

Instead of using osmosis, the process of reverse

osmosis can be used. Pressure can be applied on

wine, instead of on the water.

16 Partial or excessive

actions

Instead of continuously applying heat for increasing

the temperature of the wine, the heat could be

applied after some interval. That would allow the

temperature of the wine to be maintained and thus

the flavonoids will also not get degraded.

23 Feedback The reverse osmosis cycle needs to be repeated 10-

20 times, to get separate liquids.

33 Homogeneity Removal of ethanol from wine results in a syrupy

concentrate. To maintain the consistency of the

wine, water is added.

34 Discarding and

recovering

Using this principle, the ethanol content in the wine

can be discarded by the process of

osmosis/evaporation.

35 Parameter changes Pressure on the wine/ pressure environment for

heating is to be increased to help in the separation of

ethanol from wine.

36 Phase transitions The phenomenon during phase transition i.e.

pressure change due to externally applied pressure

to separate the alcohol from wine.

40 Composite

materials

The wine before the process is a homogeneous

liquid. The process of reverse osmosis/pressure

evaporation separates alcohol from wine, resulting

in two end products : Low alcohol wine and ethanol.

Hence, the only way to make non alcoholic wine was to evaporate the alcohol content

after the wine was made.

After applying the above 12 applicable principles of TRIZ we have 2 plausible solution,

1. Evaporating by applying heat.

2. Reverse osmosis.

1. Evaporating by applying heat.

E.g. Low pressure evaporation: Here the must is held under vacuum, and under such

low pressures the water in the must will boil off at much lower temperatures than is

otherwise the case, the usual boiling point for water being about 100ºC at a pressure of

1 atmosphere. Rapid evaporation of water at a temperature of 20ºC in theory does little

harm to the wine as this temperature is no higher than that achieved during

fermentation, although there is surely a risk of volatile substances other than water, like

flavanoids evaporating from the wine under such conditions. The technique also

requires the installation of some very expensive equipment.

Problem with heating:

a) The critical medicinal substances like flavanoids are damaged on heating.

b) Heat damages the natural flavor of the grape.

All other processes of alcohol removal require some form of heat evaporative process

in order to remove the alcohol.

2. Reverse Osmosis.

This method of separating liquids without heat was being used for water purification.

Ethanol and water posses similar solvent properties, hence the process can be extended

to removing alcohol content from wine, “the cold way”. No known side effects of

putting the wine through this process uncovered.

The Process used:

This method is unlike the heated evaporation procedure implemented by other

makers of non-alcoholic wine. In this process, called reverse osmosis, the wine flows

along the membrane, rather than through it, very high, pressure and very small pores

can be used. Mesh-like membranes that are encased in cylinders (See step 3) separate

the wine into a syrupy concentrate and an alcohol-and-water mixture. The cycle is

repeated 10-20 times, after which water is reintroduced to the concentrate to create the

finished product. The result is a superb, complex "mouth feel" and taste, with only one-

half of one percent of alcohol.

FIGURE 5.REVERSE OSMOSIS FOR ALCOHOL SEPARATION FROM WINE.

1. The base tank is initially filled with wine.

2. A pump pushes the wine into reverse osmosis unit.

3. The cylinders have membranes that separate a syrupy concentrate from the alcohol

and water.

4. The water and alcohol flow into a storage tank. The concentrate is returned to the

base tank and recycled 10 to 20 times. After which water is added to the concentrate

to create the finish product.

This solution can be considered a general solution to 6Sigma wines specific problem.

If ‘6 sigma’ uses a similar process with customized pressure setting to suit their needs,

they would be successful in producing non alcoholic wine, with its medicinal properties

conserved, good to taste, and consumable by children as well.

2.4 END RESULT

The result of the application of TRIZ is,

a) The medicinal properties in the wine were conserved.

b) The flavor/taste of the wine was conserved, good to taste.

c) Alcohol content reduced: ½ to 1% alcohol content.

d) Hence, can be administered to children in regulated quantities.

2.5 COST – BENEFIT ANALYSIS

The Cost:

For implementing the changes, there are some financial investments to be made.

1. Reverse Osmosis machines cost = Rs 2193762/- approx.

2. Distilled water storage tank costs = Rs 205708/- approx.

Hence, the approximate investment is Rs 24 lakh for one machine and multiple

machines are required to set up a new assembly line.

The Benefit:

• The newly produced non alcoholic wine can be administered to children in

regulated quantities.

• Can be a new solution to the rising rate of heart diseases.

• A prevention solution to cancer.

The cost side looks heavier at present, than the benefit side.

New market opportunity.

But non alcoholic wines can open a huge market for Six Sigma wines as not only

medicinal wines/ health drink, but also provide an alternative for non alcoholics as a

social drink as the natural flavor of wine is not hampered in the process.

3 CONCLUSION

The solution to problems is not in black or white but lies in the overlap of both that

is the “grey” area.

Six Sigma methods helps in extracting the best from any process, TRIZ helps in

generating new innovative solutions, and together they help to come to the most

effective-innovative solution.

References:

Books

Websites

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