Title: From scientific research to industrial application: a Lean Six Sigma system for improving the bill of materials of the packaging process
Authors: Georgios Chatzistelios; Evripidis P. Kechagias; Georgios A. Papadopoulos; Sotiris P. Gayialis
Addresses: Sector of Industrial Management and Operational Research, School of Mechanical Engineering, National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), 9 Iroon Polytechniou Str., 15780, Athens, Greece ' Sector of Industrial Management and Operational Research, School of Mechanical Engineering, National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), 9 Iroon Polytechniou Str., 15780, Athens, Greece ' Sector of Industrial Management and Operational Research, School of Mechanical Engineering, National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), 9 Iroon Polytechniou Str., 15780, Athens, Greece ' Sector of Industrial Management and Operational Research, School of Mechanical Engineering, National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), 9 Iroon Polytechniou Str., 15780, Athens, Greece
Abstract: In profit-making organisations like production industries, it is crucial to meet the customer needs while retaining a high profit to cost ratio and continuously improving their operations in order to survive. In this manner, lean philosophy and the Six Sigma approach are considered to be some of the most effective methods in order to achieve continuous improvement and avoid unnecessary expenses. Utilising those practices can lead to an improvement of the process execution and avoidance of errors and defects by determining their root cause, and developing and implementing solutions to correct those problems. Following this philosophy, this paper presents the implementation of the Lean Six Sigma approach via the DMAIC methodology for improving the bill of materials of the packaging process of a copper production company. The results show that the process was greatly improved and a plethora of errors and waste was eliminated.
Keywords: lean; lean production; system; Six Sigma; DMAIC; packing; continuous improvement; process.
DOI: 10.1504/IJPQM.2024.136193
International Journal of Productivity and Quality Management, 2024 Vol.41 No.1, pp.110 - 127
Received: 16 Sep 2021
Accepted: 12 Mar 2022
Published online: 22 Jan 2024 *