Lean Six Sigma Approach to Improve Overall Equipment Effectiveness Performance: A Case Study in the Indian Small Manufacturing Firm

Due to increased competition in the global market, manufacturers are focusing on product quality, cost of the product and product delivery time. Every manufacturing firm exercises their new concepts and innovative ideas for continuous improvement in their business process in order to sustain in their market. Lean six sigma approaches is the combination of lean methods and six sigma process tools and it is a well consolidated process for improving their processes. Many small sized manufacturing firms are yet unacquainted about the lean and six sigma process tools. Thus, a company should initiate a new quality system to continually improve and increase both their quality and performance efficiency. The case study was conducted in a Small and medium-sized pump manufacturing company and one of these machines had a poor OEE with a large variety. This led to on-time delivery problems which is a root cause for customer frustration. The poor OEE led to high costs in terms of rework and re-inspections of the products. Following a typical root because analysis is made; the problems are removed and improved the Critical to Quality characteristics (CTQs) which have increased the OEE and reducing its variability. Tools such as Single Minute Exchange of Die (SMED), 5s and six sigma process tools were implemented to remove the root causes. The aim of this paper is to illustrate the use lean Six Sigma approach in the small and medium sized manufacturing firm to improve Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE).