The computer service industry has been expanding dramatically due to the increase in the number of computing machineries in the last two decades. The entrance of large size companies in the market and the release of online tools that have the ability for diagnosing and troubleshooting hardware and software issues have boosted the competition. In the meantime, many of the small and medium size companies find themselves unable to keep their customers satisfied since their competitors provide high quality service with lower cost. The lack of a good measurement system to assess and analyze the satisfaction level with the provided service is the fundamental cause of customer decline. The aim of this study is to construct a robust framework to measure customer satisfaction and highlight the root causes of dissatisfaction in the computer service sector. This framework brings together the key aspects of Six Sigma and SERVQUAL instruments into a structured approach to measure and analyze customer satisfaction with computer services. It deploys the DMAIC problem solving methodology along with the SERVQUAL model, which contributes service dimensions and the Gap Analyze technique. Literature review indicates there have not been enough studies conducted to integrate Lean Six Sigma with SERVQUAL. To explore the effectiveness of the current framework, a computer service company has been selected. The satisfaction levels are calculated and the root causes of dissatisfaction have been identified. With a low overall customer satisfaction level, the company did not fulfill their customer requirements due to five major causes. Eliminating those causes will boost customer satisfaction, reduce the cost of acquiring new customers and improve the company performance in general.

Six Sigma is a business improvement strategy that aims to improve process performance using a structured methodology that identifies and removes the causes of defects in manufacturing and business processes, while implementing the lean concepts attempts to remove wasteful activities from those processes. In practice, the Six Sigma strategy and the Lean philosophy are combined and often viewed as one integrated philosophy, where the philosophy of Lean Six Sigma simultaneously removes wasteful activities from a process and reduces the variability of that process. This thesis research reviews the concepts and implementation of Lean thinking, Six Sigma strategy, and the integrated concept of Lean Six Sigma, with emphasis in service organizations. Most importantly, this thesis summarizes the critical success factors for implementing Lean Six Sigma within a service business environment and categorizes them within a proposed multi-level taxonomy that can be used by service business units and service providers to improve the .success of Lean Six Sigma implementation

Produced Water (PW) is the largest volume of waste that is normally generated during oil and gas production. It has large amounts of contaminants that can cause negative environmental and economic impacts. The management method for PW relies highly on types and concentrations of these contaminants, which are field dependent and can vary from one oil field to another. Produced water can be converted to fresh water if these contaminants are removed or reduced to the acceptable drinking water quality level. In addition, increasing oil production rate and reducing amounts of discharged harmful contaminants can be achieved by removing dissolved hydrocarbons from PW. In order to identify the types of these contaminants, effective tools and methods should be used. Six Sigma, which uses the DMAIC (Define- MeasureAnalyze- Improve- Control) problem-solving approach is one of the most effective tools to identify the root causes of having high percentages of contaminants in produced water. The methodology also helped develop a new policy change for implementing a way by which this treated water may be used. Six Sigma has not been widely implemented in oil and gas industries. This research adopted the Six Sigma methodology through a case study, related to the southern Iraqi oil fields, to investigate different ways by which produced water can be treated. Research results showed that the enormous amount of contaminated PW could be treated by using membrane filtration technology. In addition, a Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) framework is developed and that could be used as an effective tool for decision makers. The developed framework could be used within manufacturing industries, services, educational systems, governmental organizations, and others. iv This work is dedicated to my scholarship providers and supporters wit

Over the past two decades, the Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control (DMAIC) framework of the Six Sigma methodology and a host of statistical tools have been brought to bear on process improvement efforts in today’s businesses. However, a major challenge of implementing the Six Sigma methodology is maintaining the process improvements and providing real-time performance feedback and control after solutions are implemented, especially in the presence of multiple process performance objectives. The consideration of a multiplicity of objectives in business and process improvement is commonplace and, quite frankly, necessary. However, balancing the collection of objectives is challenging as the objectives are inextricably linked, and, oftentimes, in conflict. Previous studies have reported varied success in enhancing the Six Sigma methodology by integrating optimization methods in order to reduce variability. These studies focus these enhancements primarily within the Improve phase of the Six Sigma methodology, optimizing a single objective. The current research and practice of using the Six Sigma methodology and optimization methods do little to address the real-time feedback and control for online process control in the case of multiple objectives. This research proposes an innovative integrated Six Sigma multiobjective optimization (SSMO) approach for online process control. It integrates the Six Sigma DMAIC framework with a nature-inspired optimization procedure that iteratively perturbs a set of decision variables providing feedback to the online process, eventually converging to a set of tradeoff process configurations that improves and maintains process stability. For proof of concept, the approach is applied to a general business process model – a well-known inventory management model – that is formally defined and specifies various process costs as objective functions. The proposed iv SSMO approach and the business process model are programmed and incorporated into a software platform. Computational experiments are performed using both three sigma (3σ)-based and six sigma (6σ)-based process control, and the results reveal that the proposed SSMO approach performs far better than the traditional approaches in improving the stability of the process. This research investigation shows that the benefits of enhancing the Six Sigma method for multiobjective optimization and for online process control are immense.

I dagens samhälle finns ett stort behov av processeffektiviserings-metoder för att hålla företaget konkurrenskraftigt gällande produktivitet och effektivitet. Samtidigt satsar företag idag mycket på ekologisk hållbarhet, vilket har öppnat dörren för nya så kallade Green Lean-metoder vars syfte är att förbättra både produktivitet och hållbarhet. I detta arbete behandlas metoderna 5S, Environmental Value Stream Mapping, Green Lean Six Sigma samt Green Kaizen. Syftet med arbetet var att redogöra för innebörden av respektive metod samt motivera hur dessa metoder bör appliceras och implementeras i praktiken. Först behandlades metoderna teoretiskt, därefter praktiskt med enkäter. I arbetet behandlar vi företaget Scania och undersöker hur de valt att applicera och använda de metoder, hållbara metoder, de idag använder. Resultatet visade att det finns flera olika drivkrafter till varför man väljer att implementera Green Lean-metoder samt flera olika aspekter som påverkar vilka metoder som bör väljas, som exempelvis kundkrav eller erfarenhet och kunskap inom företaget. Scania använder idag Green Performance Map och Energy Kaizen som Green Lean-metoder. Slutsatsen som drogs är att metoden som bör implementeras varierar beroende på vad företaget tillverkar, hur långt de kommit med andra processeffektiviserings-metoder såsom Lean Production och Six Sigma. Om det är en problemdriven lösning så är EVSM en stark metod medan 5S bör implementeras uppifrån ledningen. / In today's society, there is a significant need for process improvement methods to maintain a company's competitiveness regarding productivity and reasonable pricing. Additionally, companies are investing heavily in environmental sustainability, leading to the emergence of new "Green Lean" methods aimed at creating improvements in both productivity and sustainability. This study examines the methods of 5S, Environmental Value Stream Mapping, Green Lean Six Sigma, and Green Kaizen. The aim of the study is to explain the meaning of each method and to motivate how these methods should be applied and implemented in practice. The methods were first studied theoretically and then practically with surveys. Scania was chosen as a case study to examine how they have chosen to apply and use the methods they have. The results showed that there are several driving forces for why companies choose to implement Green Lean methods, and several aspects affect which methods should be chosen, such as customer requirements or experience and knowledge within the company. Scania currently uses Green Performance Map and Energy Kaizen as Green Lean methods. The conclusion drawn is that the method to be implemented varies depending on what the company produces, and how far they have progressed with other process improvement methods such as Lean Production and Six Sigma. If it is a problem-driven solution, EVSM is a robust method, while 5S should be implemented by top management.

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The purpose of this research is to learn about quality measurement practices in a wood products supply chain. According to the Supply Chain Management paradigm, companies no longer compete as individual entities, but as part of complex networks of suppliers and customers, linked together by flows of materials and information. Evidence suggests that a high degree of integration between supply chain members is essential to achieve superior market and financial performance. This study investigates the potential benefits from adopting supply chain quality management practices, focusing specifically on quality measurement. A case-study was conducted to accomplish the objectives of the research. An exemplary wood products supply chain was studied in great detail. The current state was compared with best practices, as reported in the literature. Supply chain quality metrics were used to assess current performance and a simulation model was developed to estimate the impact of changes in significant factors affecting quality, such as production volume, on the supply chain's quality performance. Quality measurement practices in the supply chain of study are described in detail in this dissertation. A high degree of internal integration was observed in the focal company, attributed in great part to the leadership of management, which formulates comprehensive quality planning, specifying quality measurement practices and goals. These practices provide the company with a competitive advantage, and have undoubtedly contributed to its relatively strong market share and financial performance. Significant improvements in defect rate and on-time performance at all levels in the supply chain have been achieved in great part thanks to current initiatives. There is room for improvement, however, regarding external integration; the supply chain of study could benefit from more information sharing with its external suppliers and increasing its supplier development efforts. There is also a lack of true measures of supply chain quality performance that could facilitate tracing variances back to their origin upstream the supply chain. Supply chain metrics must reflect the contribution of each supply chain member to the overall performance, and span the entire supply chain. This is the first study that looks in depth at quality measurement practices from a supply chain perspective. It is also one of very few studies of supply chain management applied to the wood products industry. Examples are presented of how a supply chain performance measurement system can be developed. Results from this research show that it is important to adopt a supply chain perspective when designing a performance measurement system, not least to avoid sub-optimization. Poor quality at any point in the supply chain eventually translates into higher prices for the final customer, is detrimental to customer dissatisfaction, and hurts profitability; with the end result of declining competitiveness of the entire system. / Ph. D.

Yes / Competition in the manufacturing industry is growing at an accelerated rate due to globalization trend. This global competition urges manufacturing organizations to review and improve their processes in order to enhance and maintain their competitive advantage. One of those initiatives is the implementation of the Six Sigma methodology to analyze and reduce variation hence improving the processes of manufacturing organizations. This paper presents a Discrete Event Simulation methodology to support a Six Sigma approach for manufacturing organizations. Several approaches to implement Six Sigma focus on improving time management and reducing cycle time. However, these efforts may fail in their effective and practical implementation to achieve the desired results. Following the proposed methodology, a Discrete Event Simulation model was built to assist decision makers in understanding the behavior of the current manufacturing process. This approach helps to systematically define, measure and analyze the current state process to test different scenarios to improve performance. The paper is amongst the first to offer a simulation methodology to support a process improvement approach. It applies an action research strategy to develop and validate the proposed modelling methodology in a British manufacturing organization competing in global markets.