Abstract:
Process improvement or continuous improvement is a practice used by various industries in
the World in order to get high productivity and huge profits, to reduce rejection rates,
manufacturing cost and rework, to improve quality of products and processes, to develop
competitive culture among employees and the most importantly to develop customer
satisfaction.
For the process improvement, a large number of conventional and advanced methodologies
and techniques are used in which “Six Sigma” is on top and the need of time. Six sigma
methodologies are a set of quality tools and techniques which are used by many renowned
industries in order to improve their manufacturing processes. This methodology is not only
used in the manufacturing processes but also used in services sector and other sectors as well.
For this purpose several process improvement approaches are used under the umbrella of six
sigma methodologies among which DMAIC is the mostly used approach. DMAIC is largely
used along with MINITAB® software by many Six Sigma professionals.
The objective of this research is to implement DMAIC approach in Pakistan’s leading
automotive parts manufacturing industry in order to reduce the internal rejection rate, to
improve sigma level, to increase productivity and also to improve quality of its specialized
products “Truck and Trailer” wheel hubs.
This approach is used with real statistical data of the wheel hub to reduce internal rejection
rate from 4.37% to 0.65%, to improve sigma level from 3.21 to 3.98, and to provide cost
savings up to PKR 10 Million.
After implementing the DMAIC approach, several problems of the process in studied are
solved, improved, documented and standardized. DMAIC approach also builds competitive
culture among employees and it also leads to customer satisfaction which is the most
important factor for the organizations.
