Win One Year of Textile eLearning

Our TEXperts need your questions! Submit an "Ask the TEXperts" question on our Facebook page or by email, at mcgardne@ncsu.edu, and you'll be entered into a drawing for one year of free access to the entire Textiles eLearning course. The drawing will be held February 28.

eLearning from TexED contains in-depth information about all aspects of textile processing. Each course contains detailed still images, illustrations and animations which give individuals a more thorough understanding of the material. The carefully crafted illustrations and animations provide a closer look at machinery than traditional photography and videography safely allow and offer the ability to isolate individual steps of complex processes.

Narration is paired with the detailed imagery, explaining each facet of the various processes. This combination of visual and auditory information yields higher material retention rates and better understanding of the material overall. And, because eLearning is available online, students are able to watch sections multiple times in order to absorb more difficult concepts.

In addition to the courses provided through the eLearning series, an online glossary is available for quick reference at any time. eLearning from TexED is a comprehensive, cost-effective way to provide textile training to your employees.

A Journey Toward Excellence
-2011 Lean Six Sigma Forum Kickoff

How do organizations achieve the designation of best-in-class? As any CEO of such an organization will tell you, it takes a lot of hard work and the dedication of countless employees. This achievement also requires the ability to weather twists and turns throughout the long journey.

Speakers at the Forum will discuss their own organization's journey to excellence, explaining how they have leveraged Lean Six Sigma tools and methodologies, and explore how Lean Six Sigma has evolved

Join us at the 2011 Lean Six Sigma Forum, August 11 & 12, to hear how other organizations have leveraged Lean Six Sigma tools and methodologies in their journey to excellence.

The Lean Six Sigma Forum, hosted annually by NC State University's College of Textiles, is a great opportunity to hear from experts using Lean Six Sigma in innovative ways, see new developments in statistical software, and pick up tips and tricks to use in your own projects.

Q:    What Are Some Examples of Hands-On DOE Exercises I Can Use in the Classroom?

A:    Have you ever looked for hands on activities to teach DOE? How about inexpensive activities? How about activities to use when teaching the Improve phase within 3 or 4 days? In a regular classroom setting, many instructors have their students find their own experiment to conduct. Students have done DOEs on washing clothes, gas mileage, as well as on actual processes in their workplace. However, those may not scale well to a six sigma training setting. Here are some ideas for use in a 2 or 3 day course.

Helicopters are fun to use. The directions for conducting an experiment using paper helicopters are described in an article titled "Teaching engineers experimental design with a paper helicopter (George Box, 1992, Quality Engineering, 4(3), pp. 453-459). All you need is some paper, tape, paper clips, a stopwatch, and some scissors. The dimensions for the helicopters along with a list of potential factors and levels are given in the article. If you play around with the dimensions, you can design helicopters that will work even if you cannot drop them from a great height. The outcome of interest could be the time it stays in the air before hitting the floor.

Lye (2005) has compiled descriptions for many DOE teaching activities in his paper "Tools and toys for teaching design of experiments methodology", presented at the 33rd Annual General Conference of the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering. One of the activities is shooting baskets in basketball. Vary the distance from the basket, the type of shot, and location on the court to see the effect on the number of shots made out of 10. Instead of using a basketball court, you can substitute a classroom, paper, and a waste basket.