Lean Six Sigma Training Ltd

When Ford determined that the appearance of brush marks on its 2011 Fiesta vehicle carpets would be unacceptable to customers, it decided it needed to remove the brush marks when retaining the plushness of the carpet.

A Six Sigma team used a tool called Design of Experiments (DOE) to investigate all the factors that could be the cause of the problem.

When data from  34 experimental runs was analyzed in Minitab, the results revealed complex interactions between the different settings on the equipment used to make the carpet. The interactions explained why previous adjustments to individual settings had failed to find a way to eliminate the problem.  The results showed that optimization settings for eliminating brush marks did not have an adverse effect on the plushness. Incredibly, the entire project took 12 days, from the time the problem was defined to the point where the solution was in place and the process was under control.

At the Anniston US Army Depot in Alabama, successful Lean Six Sigma implementation resulted in processes that are more cost effective and less demanding in terms of man-hours. The depot’s bottom line is to continually process high-quality products on time and within constraints

of the budget so equipment can be returned to the war zone quickly at the lowest possible cost to

the taxpayers.

Due to the current state of war in the Middle East, the depot needs to support a higher demand in workload for receiving and returning equipment to warfighters. The depot’s workload increased from 4 million direct labor hours in 2004 to 6.3 million hours in 2006.

One of the most successful cases of Lean Six Sigma (LSS) implementation is the improvement of the Army Depot’s M1 Abrams tank assembly line. Prior to LSS implementation,

each employee assembled an entire module of the M1 from start to finish in typical vehicle maintenance

“bay style,” in which workers are assigned to and focused on the equipment they’re working on.

After analyzing, organizing and reviewing operations, the Anniston Army Depot determined that a one-piece flow operation could reduce assembly time by 2.2 man-hours for each module and staffing

requirements from five to four workers. Those successful efforts resulted in a reduction throughput time of 56%—from 4.5 days to two days.

After workers at the depot saw how valuable LSS implementation was to that particular process, other

workers began reviewing operations in their areas and analyzed ways to improve performance.

The M2 machine-gun assembly line eliminated waste and transformed work cells to a continuous, one-piece flow system, thus reducing assembly time of the weapon from 2.5 man hours to one and staffing

from 18 to 15. As a result, production increased from 50 to more than 100 machine guns per month.

The most significant finding was that prior to LSS implementation, mechanics spent significant time

chasing down parts. Now, with their improved workstations,

the mechanics are able to focus on doing their job and assembling or fixing equipment.

Other LSS stories published in the Defense Acquisition, Technology and Logistics journal documented

successes across different agencies in the Army. In 2006, the Red River Army Depot in Texarkana, TX,

saved $30 million on its High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle line using LSS, resulting in a higher

rate of production. The depot can now produce 32 mission-ready vehicles per day compared with three a week in 2004.

U.S. Army Recruiting Command also reduced the number of steps it takes to process new recruits by

66%. It also decreased the time it takes to get applicants through the process by 40%.

An academic research study by:

Gusman Nawanir, Lim Kong Teong and Siti Norezam Othman

School of Technology Management and Logistics,

Universiti Utara Malaysia, Sintok, Malaysia

Purpose – This study aims to investigate the relationship between lean practices, operations

performance (OP), and business performance (BP).

Design/methodology/approach – This survey-based studywas a cross-sectional study.The samples

were drawn by using stratified random sampling procedure from large Indonesian manufacturing

companies based on the directory provided by the Data and Information Center of IndonesianMinistry of

Industry with the final number of respondents of 139. Four main hypotheses were developed and

tested statistically by applying multivariate data analyses.

Findings – The results provided evidence that lean practices should be implemented holistically.

Lean practices have a positive and significant impact on both OP and BP. Moreover, OP partially

mediates the relationship between lean practices and BP.

Research limitations/implications – The data used in this survey represent self-reporting by

mainly the middle or top management in production.

Practical implications – This study contributes to the lean manufacturing (LM) body of knowledge

by identifying the relationships between the LM practices, OP, and BP. Understanding these

relationships will help practitioners in making better decisions in manufacturing organizations as well

as enable application of the concepts in this study to other contexts such as service organizations.

Originality/value – Although there are a growing number of anecdotal and empirical evidences

in favor of LM in manufacturing environment, there has been almost no theory-building and

methodologically rigorous research examining the link between LM, OP, and BP. This study is

addressed to fill this gap.