Winning customer loyalty in an automotive company through Six Sigma: a case study

Six Sigma is a disciplined approach to improving product, process and service quality. Since its inception at Motorola in the mid 1980s Six Sigma has evolved significantly and continues to expand to improve process performance, enhance business profitability and increase customer satisfaction. This paper presents an extensive literature review based on the experiences of both academics and practitioners on Six Sigma, followed by the application of the Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve, Control (DMAIC) problem-solving methodology to identify the parameters causing casting defects and to control these parameters. The results of the study are based on the application of tools and techniques in the DMAIC methodology, i.e. Pareto Analysis, Measurement System Analysis, Regression Analysis and Design of Experiment. The results of the study show that the application of the Six Sigma methodology reduced casting defects and increased the process capability of the process from 0.49 to 1.28. The application of DMAIC has resulted in a significant financial impact (over U.S. $110 000 per annum) on the bottom-line of the company

What is the role of academic institutions for the future development of Six Sigma?

This paper aims to present the role that leading engineering and business schools will play for the future development of Six Sigma. This is a viewpoint article and the material presented in this article is based on the author's experience in the field of Six Sigma. The findings of the paper reflect some of the major limitations of Six Sigma and the paper makes an attempt to address the importance of academic institutions to engage in Six Sigma research topics. The points expressed in this paper are based on the author's experience. It is essential to collect data on this topic from a number of leading researchers and practitioners in the field and to set out a research agenda in the future. This paper provides an excellent resource for those people who are currently carrying out research in Six Sigma. Moreover, the paper is equally useful to practitioners to understand the major limitations of this powerful business strategy and the role of academic institutions to address these limitations in the future

Reducing employees' turnover in transactional services : a Lean Six Sigma case study

The case study aims to illustrate the application of Lean Six Sigma into the human resource (HR) function of a service industry corporation. The study draws on process information and primary data from a real project. The study describes improvements in the HR management attributable to Lean Six Sigma: decrease of employees' voluntary turnover and increase in employees' satisfaction. Although being extremely successful in the last two decades in the manufacturing sector, the application of Lean Six Sigma to the service industry in general, and HR management in particular, has been a controversial topic: this study illustrates how its application can reduce employees' voluntary turnover rate and increase their satisfaction, hence increasing the return on investment of human capital

Statistical process control implementation in the food industry: A systematic review and implications for future research

This study is to illustrate a systematic review application in investigating common issues emerging from Statistical Process Control (SPC) implementation in the food industry. A total of 34 journal articles were rigorously selected from four databases and reviewed. The most common themes emerge in SPC implementation in the food industry is the benefits while the remaining themes are motivation, barriers and critical success factors (CSF). This review found that the evidence of SPC implementation in the food industry is beneficial; however, a lack of both awareness and guidelines relating to SPC implementation in the food industry has resulted in a slow adoption. This systematic review concluded that there is a crucial need for further research into the SPC deployment aspect addressing how to deploy SPC in the food industry in a systematic manner

Applications of lean thinking: a briefing document

This report has been put together by the Health and Care Infrastructure Research and Innovation Centre (HaCIRIC) at the University of Salford for the Department of Health. The need for the report grew out of two main simple questions, o Is Lean applicable in sectors other than manufacturing? o Can the service delivery sector learn from the success of lean in manufacturing and realise the benefits of its implementation?The aim of the report is to list together examples of lean thinking as it is evidenced in the public and private service sector. Following a review of various sources a catalogue of evidence is put together in an organised manner which demonstrates that Lean principles and techniques, when applied rigorously and throughout an entire organization/unit, they can have a positive impact on productivity, cost, quality, and timely delivery of services

Implementing the Lean Sigma Framework in an Indian SME: a case study

Lean and Six Sigma are two widely acknowledged business process improvement strategies available to organisations today for achieving dramatic results in cost, quality and time by focusing on process performance. Lately, Lean and Six Sigma practitioners are integrating the two strategies into a more powerful and effective hybrid, addressing many of the weaknesses and retaining most of the strengths of each strategy. Lean Sigma combines the variability reduction tools and techniques from Six Sigma with the waste and non-value added elimination tools and techniques from Lean Manufacturing, to generate savings to the bottom-line of an organisation. This paper proposes a Lean Sigma framework to reduce the defect occurring in the final product (automobile accessories) manufactured by a die-casting process. The proposed framework integrates Lean tools (current state map, 5S System, and Total Productive Maintenance (TPM)) within Six Sigma DMAIC methodology to enhance the bottom-line results and win customer loyalty. Implementation of the proposed framework shows dramatic improvement in the key metrics (defect per unit (DPU), process capability index, mean and standard deviation of casting density, yield, and overall equipment effectiveness (OEE)) and a substantial financial savings is generated by the organisation

Lean Thinking: Theory, Application and Dissemination

This book was written and compiled by the University of Huddersfield to share the learnings and experiences of seven years of Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) and Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) funded projects with the National Health Service (NHS). The focus of these projects was the implementation of Lean thinking and optimising strategic decision making processes. Each of these projects led to major local improvements and this book explains how they were achieved and compiles the lessons learnt. The book is split into three chapters; Lean Thinking Theory, Lean Thinking Applied and Lean Thinking Dissemination

Case study in six sigma methadology : manufacturing quality improvement and guidence for managers

This article discusses the successful implementation of Six Sigma methodology in a high precision and critical process in the manufacture of automotive products. The Six Sigma define–measure–analyse–improve–control approach resulted in a reduction of tolerance-related problems and improved the first pass yield from 85% to 99.4%. Data were collected on all possible causes and regression analysis, hypothesis testing, Taguchi methods, classification and regression tree, etc. were used to analyse the data and draw conclusions. Implementation of Six Sigma methodology had a significant financial impact on the profitability of the company. An approximate saving of US$70,000 per annum was reported, which is in addition to the customer-facing benefits of improved quality on returns and sales. The project also had the benefit of allowing the company to learn useful messages that will guide future Six Sigma activities

Why small and medium construction enterprises do not employ six sigma

Six sigma (6σ) is a powerful business strategy which is aimed at increasing customer satisfaction and profitability by improving the quality of products and services. Many organisations have implemented 6σ and achieved significant levels of success. Successful implementation of 6σ leads to outcomes that would be welcome in the construction industry, given its reputation of suboptimal performance. The construction industry relies heavily on small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Any improvement in construction SMEs would lead to improvements in the construction industry as a whole. Against this background, a survey was undertaken to establish whether construction SMEs used 6σ and to identify factors affecting the adoption of this business strategy. It was found that none of the SMEs in the sample used 6σ. The reasons given for not employing 6σ, in descending order of importance, were: lack of knowledge about 6σ programme; lack of resources (human, time, money); 6σ programme not required by customers; other sufficient quality system in use; 6σ provides no perceived benefits; and end users not prepared to pay for 6σ programme. These reasons can be challenged when a critical analysis of innovation in the external environment within which construction SMEs operate, trends in the mode of delivery of construction industry products, trends in performance measurement in the construction industry and the flexibility of 6σ as a quantitative approach to managing quality. Construction industry stakeholders need to think about 6σ critically and make informed decisions about its role in the construction industry quality management agenda