Application Of Six Sigma To Improve Efficiency Of C Company Pump Assembly Line

Six sigma arisen in the 1980 s when total quality management was flourishing,it was contributed by many quality gurus and evolved on their research findings,is a comprehensive also new development of total quality management and quality improvement methodology.Michael.Harry,Bill.Smith,Richard.Schroeder from Motorola are important initiators of six sigma.and from 1987 onwards,CEO Bob.Galvin propel six sigma which result in Motorola won 5 times of sales growth in 10 years,profit increased 20% annually,total earned $ 14 billion,average annual stock rose 21.3%,it’s really amazing.Then with Jack.Welch’s leadership,six sigma ascend to GE’s management system,and was promoted to one of its four strategic,it makes six sigma far more than quality improvement and statistics,then six sigma was widely used in all kinds of industries or areas,such as improving delivery time or productivity,and so on.C company is a US-owned company’s China Branch,the main product is cleaning systems for cars which including front and rear windshield washing and headlamp cleaning;C company produce 1.47 million pump annually which is the key component of cleaning system.But on account of pump’s prices wasn’t increased since mass production in 2006 while labor and other costs keep rising.C company’s profit rate declined even sales volume increased;furthermore,one of the main domestic competitors have reduced their operators from 10 to 7 for one line with keep same output in 2014,C company face greater competitive pressure than ever.In order to maintain and enhance the competitiveness of C company’s product to keep earning,C company need to cut costs and improve productivity urgently.Also pump’s outlet pressure is reply on technician’s experience but not on data,it wasted a lot and it’s another factor affecting efficiency so needed to be improved as well.This thesis is based on the six sigma theory domestic and abroad also have introduced six sigma’s origins,existing status,related tools,and new development.Based on its theoretical studies and six sigma DMAIC improvement model,combined with the tools kit for improvement.This thesis have identified and resolved bottleneck of pump line also imbalance between workstations which affect efficiency,have used DOE to study and optimized another affecting factor for outlet pressure.Well resolved the low efficiency and wasting problem all along.Reduced 4 operators but keep same productivity,promoted the efficiency dramatically and achieved the target setting,it also can be a reference for those enterprises want to use six sigma for improve efficiency.The whole improvement process lasted four months,then I created PPT report accordingly in two weeks,and then spend a few months written thesis,I have read many native and foreign books,journals during the whole research process,also have collected a large amount of data for analysis and 80 chart or table in this thesis.