Implementing Lean Six Sigma: The effective integration of two improvement methodologies

Specialisation project in production and quality engineering, supervised by Heidi Dreyer and Daryl Powell.

In this specialisation project I investigated how can Lean thinking and Six Sigma be effectively integrated in order to deliver superior business results. Based on these findings, Lean Six Sigma implementation plan for Đuro Đaković Special Vehicles is proposed.

Summary:

Quality, continuous improvement and customer satisfaction are the core of two widely spread paradigms, namely lean thinking and Six Sigma. Organizations that successfully deployed either of aforementioned paradigms claim great financial savings. Academics constantly analyze both paradigms, trying to identify success criteria and barriers. Lean Six Sigma, an integrated paradigm, surfaced, aiming to exploit strengths and overcome weaknesses of both approaches.

Ðuro Ðaković Special Vehicles is a Croatian organization specialised in railway and military programme. With their flagship product, armoured modular vehicle Patria AMV 8x8, they aim to penetrate world market. Therefore, implementation of Lean Six Sigma is proposed as tool for achieving competitive advantage.

Chapter 1 presents the project overview statement and detailed overview of research methodology. Chapter 2 covers quality and quality management theory. Theory and principles of lean thinking, Six Sigma and Lean Six Sigma are concisely present in Chapters 3–5, respectively. Case study is presented in Chapter 6, with high-level process map and proposed deployment road map. Identified knowledge gaps and potential future research is presented in Chapter 7. Finally, concluding remarks are in Chapter 8. Project assignment and previous project reports are appended at the end of the project paper.

Publication link: unpublished. Stored at NTNU and FSB internal libraries.

Available in English.

I've updated and published parts of the project as a series of blog posts:

• On Managing for Quality
• Quality Philosophers
• Quality Management Systems
• Quality Management Frameworks
• On Continuous Improvement
• Six Sigma: defined
• Six Sigma: deployment and methods
• Six Sigma: organisation and roles
• Six Sigma: critique
• Lean Thinking: origin
• Lean Thinking: principles and tools
• Lean Thinking: assessing leanness
• Lean Thinking: critique
• Lean Six Sigma: origin
• Lean Six Sigma: in-depth comparison
• Lean Six Sigma: deployment