Title: Six Sigma implementation to minimise weight variation for Baby Lido Diaper manufacturing company

Authors: Nabeel Mandahawi; Suleiman M. Obeidat

Addresses: Industrial Engineering Department, The Hashemite University, Zarqa 13115, Jordan ' Industrial Engineering Department, The Hashemite University, Zarqa 13115, Jordan

Abstract: The increasing demand in baby diaper products in addition to customer requirements has compelled companies to improve the quality of their production processes. This paper presents a customised Six Sigma procedure to reduce weight variation in diaper products. To this end, a define, measure, analyse, improve and control (DMAIC) model is developed and applied at a production line at a local company to identify and control root causes. Thorough analysis of collected data revealed that excess fluff, sap and pulp are the main causes for variations. As a result, several changes have been adopted at the improvement phase; these improvements decreased defects per million opportunities (DPMO) form 292,157 to 88,152 and increased the sigma level from 2.05 to 2.85.

Keywords: baby diaper products; nappy products; six sigma implementation; DMAIC; weight variation reduction; quality improvement; DPMO; diapers; nappies.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSSCA.2012.053472

International Journal of Six Sigma and Competitive Advantage, 2012 Vol.7 No.2/3/4, pp.243 - 255

Received: 24 Jul 2012
Accepted: 05 Mar 2013

Published online: 22 Apr 2015 *

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