FSCI Receives Honorary Mention in UK’s Six Sigma Summit
 
First Sumiden Circuits Inc (FSCI), a joint venture among Sumitomo Electric Industries (SEI), Sumitomo Corporation (SC) and First Philippine Holdings Corp. (FPHC) received Honorary Mention in the 7th Six Sigma Summit held in London, UK on April 24 to 27, 2006.
 
First Sumiden garnered 2nd place on its maiden attempt in UK’s Six Sigma Excellence Award. FSCI bested 58 entries from various multi-national companies from Europe and North America for its process improvement project entitled “Coverlay Registration Defect Reduction” which enabled the company to save $25,000. FSCI's President, Dan Lachica, presented the technical paper in addition to his role as speaker (FSCI's Integration of Six Sigma and Lean Manufacturing) and panelist (Six Sigma in Supply Chain Management) during the three-day Summit. Before its international recognition, the Six Sigma project was recognized locally as “Best Technical Paper” in the Semiconductor and Electronics Industries in the Philippines, Inc. (SEIPI)-Association of Semiconductors & Electronics Manufacturing Engineers of the Philippines (ASEMEP) Technical Symposium in July 2005.
 
FSCI implemented Six Sigma in 2001 as its key platform for systematic process management. Six Sigma improves any process by reducing variation and defects. It is a statistics-based, problem-solving methodology using the Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control (DMAIC) approach. Through Six Sigma, FSCI improved its sigma level from 2.70 in 2001 to 3.64 in March 2006, generating savings amounting to US$ 1.72M.
 
As a result of FSCI’s implementation of Six Sigma, FSCI has been benchmarked by customers like Hitachi Global Storage Technology and Fujitsu Computer Products of the Philippines, and has been recognized and commended in various local and international fora including the Asian Six Sigma Summit in Singapore in May 2005.
 
Lean Manufacturing improves processes by eliminating waste in time, materials, capacity and money. Implemented in mid-2005, Lean has helped FSCI reduce cycle time by 22% and inventory by 4%, thereby generating savings of $242K as of April 2006. FSCI integrated Lean with Six Sigma in January 2006.