FSCI receives Honorary Mention in 2007 Asian Six Sigma Summit
 
First Sumiden Circuits, Inc. (FSCI) received an Honorary Mention for Best Defect Elimination in Manufacturing in the Six Sigma Excellence Awards during 2007 Asian Six Sigma Summit held in Singapore on June 4-7.
 
FSCI’s entry, entitled “Reduction of Coverlay Misregistration Defective Rate in a Flexible PCB Assembly,” generated US$25,000 in savings. It ranked second place among 20 entries from various multi-national companies worldwide.
 
The award was received by FSCI President Dan Lachica, who was also invited to speak in the summit on “Selecting and Training of Six Sigma Practitioners for Retention.” He shared FSCI’s experiences related to developing a quality organization based on Six Sigma principles, selecting employees to be trained as Six Sigma practitioners, and aligning rewards and professional growth with Six Sigma training to ensure talent retention.
 
The project also garnered second place among 40 entries worldwide for Best Defect Elimination in Manufacturing in the Six Sigma Excellence Awards during the 2006 European Six Sigma Summit held on April 24-27 in London.
 
The team behind the winning Six Sigma project was led by Ritchie Magno, a Six Sigma Black Belt and Senior Supervisor. The team members are Cormel Adrias, Paulita Alfaro, JodieMae Brin, Joyce Foronda, Florante Paala, and Henry Victoria.
 
The Asian Six Sigma Excellence Awards was established by the International Quality and Productivity Center (IQPC) to recognize and promote Six Sigma projects that demonstrate true best practices. The Six Sigma IQPC hosts award ceremonies during its annual Six Sigma summits in Asia, Europe and North America.
 
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 2006, generating savings amounting to US$ 3.2M. FSCI is also the lead company in the Lopez Group to introduce Lean Manufacturing.
 
Using the Lean Six Sigma approach in process management integrated with its other business excellence initiatives, FSCI scored 850 out of a perfect 1,000 points in the 9th cycle of the Philippine Quality Award. This is the highest score ever in the 9-year history of the PQA.