ABSTRACT A GUIDE FOR CONSTRUCTION COMPANIES TO APPLY LEAN SIX SIGMA METHODOLOGY D&Uuml / gME, Fatma Zehra M.S., Department of Civil Engineering Supervisor: Asst. Prof. Dr. Yasemin NIELSEN April 2008, 245 pages The construction sector is an immensely important industrial sector in terms of economic and social impact and also employment facilities. Nonetheless, much research has pointed out a gap in terms of labor productivity, quality, performance and responsiveness to customer needs when compared with other large industrial sectors / sectors that have recently experienced huge gains and cost reductions via methods like Lean Six Sigma. In this study, the construction industry will be examined for determination of the potential Lean Six Sigma implementation level and expected benefits from its use. The author conducted interviews with three companies in order to find out their readiness for such a management by innovation. One of the companies was selected for further study due to suitability of their organizational structure, innovative strategy and interest in this study. By taking up this pilot study and Lean Six Sigma principles as references, five roadmaps are generated as a guidance to implement Lean Six Sigma methodology for companies indicating the general steps before and during the implementation. The proposed roadmaps and applied questionnaire/interview questions developed in this thesis will also be helpful to construction companies to scrutinize their own structure and performance levels and as a guide on how to pursuit improvements through the proposed implementation of the Lean Six Sigma methodology.

The Health Care System has struggled with many problems such as medical errors, poorly designed processes, waste, and customer dissatisfaction. The Lean Six Sigma methodology has been shown to be efficient in solving problems in the manufacturing industry and in services, as well. In this study, a framework for applying Lean Six Sigma to the health care industry is presented. The framework depicts a systematic methodology to solve problems typically found in this industry. A case study is also presented on how to apply this framework. The DMAIC Model has been conducted in an Imaging Department to identify the root causes of problems and to define a future state of the process

The diploma thesis describes practical usage of Lean Enterprise and Six sigma tools in Honeywell Brno o. z. The aim of this diploma thesis is to demonstrate Lean Enterprise and Six Sigma tools like one of the most effective tools of continous improvement in production.

The diploma thesis applies to Lean management and it´s application in administrative processes. The goal of diploma thesis is proposal to increase the value added activities and to reduce waste at the same time in the area of administration. The methods of Lean management as 7+1 waste, Kaizen, Lean office, Six Sigma and Lean Six Sigma are applied in administrative processes in Shared service centre. These methods are evaluated by performance and productivity of processes.

Competition and lead-time pressure motivates us to find new and better ways of continuously improving the output of our work. The emphasis on improvement in both efficiency and quality has become more and more significant in daily activities. The performance of Ericsson’s AXE/APZ products during shipment test phase is one such activity and is the focus of this thesis project. One of the essential principles of shipment testing is to ensure that the test campaigns finish on time. Over the last several decades companies have spent large amounts of time and money on improving test quality and efficiency. Unfortunately, the results have not always been as good as expected. It seems that it is very difficult to improve shipment testing performance using traditional test management methods. Motorola introduced Six Sigma in 1986 and achieved 5.4 Sigma level which help them saved 2.2 Billion dollars during the first six years. From Statistic aspect, it means only 3.4 defects per million opportunities. The Six Sigma methodology has been applied as a management philosophy focused on improving efficiency and performance during the shipment test period. This thesis gives an introduction to the Six Sigma approach, including the concepts of Six Sigma, its history, development, and methodology. More specifically the author uses the Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control (DMAIC) approach to evaluate the performance of Ericsson’s AXE/APZ Shipment Testing. This project goal was defined: Compare with the performance of 08AXE shipment test which 87% of test campaigns (2.68 sigma level) were finished on time, 3 sigma level in 09AXE shipment test which means 93%of the test campaigns will be finished on time has to be achieved.  The thesis measured the 08AXE shipment test performance and analyzed the lead time of test campaigns, found the root causes such as poor documents quality from the legacy project, lack of test resources, no system impact analysis. The thesis also provided a set of proposals for improvements and control of the improved process in order to ensure sustainable improved performance results. Finally 93% test campaigns were finished on time in 09AXE and project goal was fulfilled. / Konkurrens och ledtid tryck motiverar oss att hitta nya och bättre vägar att kontinuerligt förbättra resultatet av vårt arbete. Betoningen av förbättring av både effektivitet och kvalité har blivit allt mer signifikant i våra dagliga aktiviteter. Prestationen av Ericssons AXE/APZ produkter under sändningens test fas är en sådan aktivitet och det är där fokusen på detta tes projekt ligger. En av de grundläggande principerna av sändnings test är att se till att test kampanjer avslutat i tid. Under de senaste årtionden har företag spenderat stora summor tid och pengar att förbättra test kvalité och effektivitet. Tyvärr har resultaten inte vart så bra som förväntat. Det ser ut så att det är mycket svårt att förbättra sändnings test prestationen när du använder traditionella test förvaltningsmetoder. Six Sigma metodik har blivit tillämpad som en ledningsfilosofi fokuserad på att förbättra effektivitet och prestation under test exekverings perioden. Denna tes ger en introduktion till Six Sigma tillvägagångssättet, inklusive konceptet från Sig Sigma, dess historia, utveckling och metodik. Mer specifikt använder vi Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve och Control (DMAIC) tillvägagångssätt för att utvärdera prestationen av Ericssons AXE/APZ sändnings testning.  Denna process kräver definitionen av prestationsmålet, mätningar av nuvarande prestanda och analys av data för att hitta rötterna till orsakerna av problemen. Resultatet av denna definition, mätning och analys var en rad förslag till förbättringar och kontroll av den förbättrade processen för att säkerhetsställa hållbara förbättrade prestations resultat.

El texto completo de este trabajo no está disponible en el Repositorio Académico UPC por restricciones de la casa editorial donde ha sido publicado. / The present research work has as objective the application of Six Sigma DMAIC methodology in the production’s processes, the results will be manifested in increasing the efficiency of the production system and in reducing the delay in order delivery. In a metal mechanic company dedicated to the manufacture of electrical boards which focus is the terraced boards there was presented a fulfillment rate failure to deliver on time 46%. On the other hand, the delivery delay is generated because the current productivity does not supply what is required by the customer, therefore a minimum 394 units per month is needed to meet the requirements but currently only produce 226 units per month. For solve this problem it was proposed that Production model that merges the painting and baking areas and that generates an impact on the entire painting operation.

Lean Six Sigma is an approach focused on improving quality, reducing variation and eliminating waste in an organization. The concept of combining the principles and tools of Lean Enterprise and Six Sigma has occurred in the literature over the last several years. The majority of Lean Six Sigma applications have been in private industry, focusing mostly on manufacturing applications. The literature has not provided a framework for implementing Lean Six Sigma programs applied to local government. This research provides a framework roadmap for implementing Lean Six Sigma in local government. The Service Improvement for Transaction-based Entities Lean Six Sigma Framework Roadmap (SITE MAP) identifies the activities, principles, tools, and important component factors to implement Lean Six Sigma. The framework provides a synergistic approach to integrating the concepts and tools of Lean Enterprise and Six Sigma using the DMAIC (Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control) problem solving approach. A case study was used to validate the framework. Lean Six Sigma was successfully applied in a 7,000-citizen municipality to reduce the cycle time of the financial administrative processes in the Finance Department of the city government.

Many organizations are struggling to improve customer-focused quality in today's highly competitive domestic and global markets. At the same time, these organizations have failed to implement the Six Sigma methodology into their daily control and strategic planning processes. Six Sigma deployment failures have been categorized as coming from many sources, both management related and person related. Some of the key management related Six Sigma project failures have been identified and discussed in this research work. For continuous improvement to truly take root, organizations must realize that just successfully applying quality tools on any process will not necessarily provide dramatic results, unless the concepts of policy management and deployment are institutionalized. A model called "Six Sigma Policy Deployment" was developed and has been proposed which may help mitigate Six Sigma project failures that are presently attributed to management and organizational issues. By integrating Policy Deployment, the Six Sigma DMAIC (Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control) problem solving approach, and the classic PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) Cycle, the potential for breakthrough improvements in any organization can be enhanced. The model was contrasted against a list of 30 sources of failure in typical Six Sigma projects in order to validate its applicability to mitigate these failures. Furthermore these failures were matched with the work of recent quality theorists in order to validate their occurrence and relevance. A case study section is presented to illustrate FPL's Quality Improvement Program and the Six Sigma Lifecycle, which are bases for the new model. This section also highlights how the use of the proposed Six Sigma Policy Deployment model could help to mitigate potential Six Sigma project failures.

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A continuous improvement project (CIP) is a structured improvement project using a team of people "typically representing different departments or units in the organization" working to improve a process or work area over a relatively short period of time, such as a few days or up to several months. A CIP may use different improvement methodologies and tools, and may thus be defined according to the improvement approach. For instance, an organization adopting Lean as an improvement approach is likely to have CIPs implementing Lean tools, such as 5S or value stream mapping. These projects may be referred to as Lean projects in general, although they may also represent accelerated improvement projects such as Kaizen events, Kaizen blitz, or rapid improvement projects. Alternatively, an organization utilizing Six Sigma as an improvement approach may have Six Sigma projects that use the Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control (DMAIC) process and statistical tools. Some organizations adopt an integrated improvement approach, such as Lean Six Sigma, and therefore may have CIPs with an even broader set of tools from which to choose. Lastly, many organizations may have an improvement approach not characterized by any single set of improvement processes and tools, and thus, may be thought of generally as process improvement, or quality improvement, projects using a traditional methodology as plan-do-study/check-act (PDSA or PDCA). In this dissertation, all of these types of improvement projects are referred as CIPs. Since the 1980s, hospitals have been using CIPs to address some of the problems in hospitals, such as quality in healthcare delivery, internal process efficiency, communication and coordination, and the cost of services. Some hospitals have achieved significant improvements, such as reducing the turnaround time for clinical laboratory results by 60 percent and reducing instrumentation decontaminations and sterilization cycle time by 70 percent. However, as with many other companies, hospitals often experience difficulty achieving their desired level of improvements with CIPs. Therefore, the purpose of this dissertation is to identify the critical success factors (CSFs) related to CIP success. In order to achieve this goal, five objectives were achieved: creating a methodology to assess the maturity or evolution of a research field (manuscript #1), identifying a comprehensive list of CSFs for CIPs (manuscript #2), assessing the maturity of the published literature on CIPs in hospitals (manuscript #3), identifying the most important factors related to CIPs in hospitals (manuscript #4) , and conducting an empirical investigation to define the CSFs for CIPs in hospital settings (manuscript #5 and #6). This investigation was conducted in three phases: research framing, variable reduction, and model development and testing. During these phases, the researcher used the following methodologies and data collection tools: systematic literature review, maturity framework (developed as part of this dissertation), expert study, retrospective survey questionnaire, exploratory factor analysis, partial-least squares structural equation modeling, and regression modeling. A maturity framework with nine dimensions was created (manuscript #1) and applied in order to identify a list of 53 factors related to CIP in general, involving any organization (manuscript #2). Additionally, the maturity framework was used to assess the literature available on CIPs in hospitals, considering only the authorship characteristic dimension (manuscript #3). Considering the frequency of new authors per year, the relative new integration of research groups, and the limited set of predominant authors, the research field, or area, of CIPs in hospitals is one with opportunities for improving maturity. Using the systematic literature review from manuscript #3, the list of 53 factors, and the list of predominant authors, a review of the literature was conducted, along with an expert study to more fully characterize the importance of various factors (manuscript #4). A conclusion from this particular work was that it is not possible to reduce the list of 53 factors based on these results, thus, a field study using the complete comprehensive list of factors was determined to have stronger practical implications. A field study was conducted to identify factors most related to CIP perceived success (manuscript #5) and CIP goal achievement (manuscript #6). The final results and practical implications of this dissertation consist in the identification of the following CSFs for CIP success in hospitals: Goal Characteristics, Organizational Processes, Improvement Processes, and Team Operation. These CSFs include several specific factors that, to the researcher's knowledge, have not been previously studied in empirical investigations: goal development process, organizational policies and procedures, CIP progress reporting, and CIP technical documentation. Practitioners involved with CIPs, such as CIP leaders, facilitators, stakeholders/customers, and continuous improvement managers/leaders, can utilize these results to increase the likelihood of success by considering these factors in planning and conducting CIPs. / Ph. D.