Productivity Improvement of a Special Purpose Machine Using DMAIC Principles: A Case Study

Six Sigma is one of the popular methodologies used by the companies to improve the quality and productivity. It uses a detailed analysis of the process to determine the causes of the problem and proposes a successful improvement. Various approaches are adopted while following Six Sigma methodologies and one of them is DMAIC. The successful implementation of DMAIC and FTA is discussed in this paper. In this study, the major problem was of continuous rework up to 16%, which was leading to wastage of man hours and labor cost. Initially, fault tree analysis (FTA) was used to detect the key process input variables (KPIVs) affecting the output. Multivariable regression analysis was performed to know the possible relationship between the KPIVs and the output. The DMAIC methodology was successfully implemented to reduce the rework from 16% bores per month to 2.20% bores per month. The other problem of nonuniform step bores was also reduced significantly.

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