New Horizons for Shipbuilding Process Improvement

2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bahadir Inozu ◽  
M. J. Niccolai ◽  
Clifford A. Whitcomb ◽  
Brian Brian MacClaren ◽  
Ivan Ivan Radovic ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Process Improvement ◽  
Six Sigma ◽  
Lean Six Sigma ◽  
Defense Contractors ◽  
New Era ◽  
Process Improvements ◽  
New Horizons ◽  
Direct Reports ◽  
Design For Six Sigma ◽  
Strategy Design

“In 2004, we start an Initiative --Lean Six Sigma Initiative to achieve our Op Ex Goals. We will be conducting a number of on boarding sessions for Six Sigma with senior leaders in DOD, NAVY, and most importantly Defense Contractors. We will require Six Sigma training for direct reports.” John Young, ASN (RDA) The announcement of NAVSEA’s Lean Six Sigma initiative has ushered in a new era in the ways that naval combatants are designed, built, and operated. As the Navy’s budgetary constraints increase in the coming years, the challenges they face in the 21st century will grow. New levels of process performance are mandated. This paper first highlights the opportunities that the Lean Six Sigma roadmap brings to shipbuilding process improvement and then details the efforts to adopt Lean Six Sigma and align it with the continuous improvement initiative at NGSS. Aspects of management strategy, Design for Six Sigma, replicating process improvements as part of integrating Lean Six Sigma with Knowledge Management are discussed.

New Horizons for Shipbuilding Process Improvement

2006 ◽  
Vol 22 (02) ◽  
pp. 87-98
Author(s):  
Bahadir Inozu ◽  
M. J. "Nick" Niccolai ◽  
Clifford A. Whitcomb ◽  
Brian MacClaren ◽  
Ivan Radovic ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Process Improvement ◽  
Six Sigma ◽  
Lean Six Sigma ◽  
Defense Contractors ◽  
New Era ◽  
Process Improvements ◽  
New Horizons ◽  
Direct Reports ◽  
Design For Six Sigma ◽  
Strategy Design

"In 2004, we start an Initiative—Lean Six Sigma Initiative to achieve our Op Ex Goals. We will be conducting a number of on boarding sessions for Six Sigma with senior leaders in DOD, NAVY, and most importantly Defense Contractors. We will require Six Sigma training for direct reports."John Young, Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Research, Development, and Acquisition)The announcement of NAVSEA's Lean Six Sigma initiative has ushered in a new era in the ways that naval combatants are designed, built, and operated. As the Navy's budgetary constraints increase in the coming years, the challenges they face in the 21st century will grow. New levels of process performance are mandated. This paper first highlights the opportunities that the Lean Six Sigma roadmap brings to shipbuilding process improvement and then details the efforts to adopt Lean Six Sigma and align it with the continuous improvement initiative at Northrop Grumman Ship Systems. Aspects of management strategy, design for Six Sigma, and replicating process improvements as part of integrating Lean Six Sigma with Knowledge Management are discussed.

scholarly journals Lean Six Sigma and Athletic Training: A Primer for Athletic Training Educators

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 259-268 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Noller ◽  
David C. Berry
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Quality Improvement ◽  
Athletic Training ◽  
Process Improvement ◽  
Six Sigma ◽  
Athletic Trainers ◽  
Lean Six Sigma ◽  
Health Care Facilities ◽  
Athletic Training Educators ◽  
Robust Process

Context Lean as a quality improvement philosophy is new to athletic training despite widespread use in health care for many years. Objective To introduce the concepts of Lean and Lean Six Sigma and create a primer document for athletic training educators in the classroom. Background Lean requires organizations to exercise effort along with several dimensions simultaneously to improve patient quality and efficiency while controlling costs and reducing waste. When appropriately executed, Lean transforms how an organization and its employees work, creating an avid quest for quality improvement and, ultimately, patient safety. Synthesis Lean is a cultural transformation that changes how an organization operates. It requires new habits, skills, and attitudes throughout the organization, from executives to front-line staff. Lean is a journey, not a destination. The culture of Lean involves the relentless pursuit of continuous quality improvement and is composed of 6 principles and numerous tools. Recommendation(s) Whether athletic trainers approach Lean or Lean Six Sigma in a leadership role, or as a stakeholder in a Kaizen event, all should have a working knowledge of the principles, methods, elements, philosophy, and tools of robust process improvement. Moreover, while no best-practice statement exists about how to incorporate Lean Six Sigma into a curriculum, addressing process improvement early may allow immersive-experience students an opportunity to engage in a process improvement initiative, facilitating a greater appreciation of the content, and offer opportunities to engage professionals from other disciplines. Conclusion(s) Lean is reproducible in sports medicine clinics, orthopedic practices, and outpatient and athletic health care facilities, but only when athletic trainers understand the application. Moreover, for this reason, athletic training programs should strongly consider adding a robust process improvement course/content to their graduate curriculums.

scholarly journals Integrating Lean Six Sigma and Supply Chain Practices for Improving the Supply Chain Performance

2012 ◽  
pp. 67-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sunil Jauhar ◽  
Piyush Tillasi ◽  
Rachana Choudhary
Keyword(s):  
Supply Chain ◽  
Six Sigma ◽  
Lean Six Sigma ◽  
Supply Chain Performance ◽  
Statistical Control ◽  
Bottom Line ◽  
Quality Cost ◽  
Process Improvements ◽  
Organizational Functions ◽  
Product And Process

This paper describes the fusion of Lean and Six Sigma is required to achieve the fastest rate of improvement in quality, cost, delivery and process speed. By combining Lean and Six Sigma it is possible to achieve highly effective improvements in a company’s operations. Six Sigma doesn’t focus on speed. And, Lean cannot bring a process under statistical control. Lean Six Sigma efforts tend to be aligned by organizational functions rather than supply chains. This can result in departmental improvements, but fall short in achieving end to end supply chain improvements. Supply chain management (SCM) is a major issue in many industries as organizations begin to appreciate the criticality of creating an integrated relationship with their suppliers and customers, as well as all other stakeholders. It is concerned with smoothness, economically driven operations and maximizing value for the end customer through quality delivery. Hence, research is undertaken to integrate lean Six Sigma and SCM that will focus on how their integration drives rapid focused product and process improvements which result in controlled, sustainable, and validated improvements to the bottom line.

scholarly journals Reducing surgical cancellations: a successful application of Lean Six Sigma in healthcare

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. e001342
Author(s):  
Stijn Schretlen ◽  
Paulien Hoefsmit ◽  
Suzanne Kats ◽  
Geofridus van Merode ◽  
Jos Maessen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Quality Improvement ◽  
Problem Solving ◽  
Process Improvement ◽  
Six Sigma ◽  
Treatment Time ◽  
Statistical Significance ◽  
Continuous Process ◽  
Bypass Graft ◽  
Lean Six Sigma ◽  
Data Driven

ObjectiveThe COVID-19 pandemic emphasises the need to use healthcare resources efficient and effective to guarantee access to high-quality healthcare in an affordable manner. Surgical cancellations have a negative impact on these. We used the Lean Six Sigma (LSS) methodology to reduce cardiac surgical cancellations in a University Medical Center in the Netherlands, where approximately 20% of cardiac surgeries were being cancelled.MethodA multifunctional project team used the data-driven LSS process improvement methodology and followed the ‘DMAIC’ improvement cycle (Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve, Control). Through all DMAIC phases, real-world data from the hospital information system supported the team during biweekly problem-solving sessions. This quality improvement study used an ‘interrupted time series’ study design. Data were collected between January 2014 and December 2016, covering 20 months prior and 16 months after implementation. Outcomes were number of last-minute coronary artery bypass graft cancellations, number of repeated diagnostics, referral to treatment time and patient satisfaction. Statistical process control charts visualised the change and impact over time. Students two-sample t-test was used to test statistical significance. A p<0.05 was considered as statistically significant.ResultsLast-minute cancellations were reduced by 50% (p=0.010), repeated preoperative diagnostics (X-ray) declined by 67% (p=0.021), referral to treatment time reduced by 35% (p=0.000) and patient Net Promoter Score increased by 14% (p=0.005).ConclusionThis study shows that LSS is an effective quality improvement approach to help healthcare organisations to deliver more safe, timely, effective, efficient, equitable and patient-centred care. Crucial success factors were the use of a structured data-driven problem-solving approach, focus on patient value and process flow, leadership support and engagement of involved healthcare professionals through the entire care pathway. Ongoing monitoring of key performance indicators is helpful in engaging the organisation to maintain continuous process improvement and sustaining long-term impact.

scholarly journals Lean Six Sigma for Quality and Performance Improvement of POH Process of Wagon Wheel CTRB

2019 ◽  
pp. 471-486
Author(s):  
Tafadzwa Majoni ◽  
Prashant Tomar
Keyword(s):  
Six Sigma ◽  
Lean Six Sigma ◽  
Premature Failure ◽  
Process Improvements ◽  
Work In Process ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Takt Time ◽  
Improvement Programs ◽  
Lean Tools ◽  
Tools And Techniques

Due to high competition in present world, every end user of a product demand their products to be delivered to them on time with good quality. Hence it is an objective of every industry to satisfy their customer requirements. In the long run, this can be achieved by continuous and constant process improvements. Lean Six Sigma is an overall quality improvement approach combining and capitalizing the strengths of Six Sigma and Lean Management improvement programs. In CTRB periodic overhaul, several process steps and workplaces are required for the job, the movement of inventory between the workplaces can be very time consuming unless it is suitably planned. The major areas that need great attention in this system are WIP (work in process), Takt time and process variability. In this study, focus is on the application of lean tools and techniques with their principles coupled with six sigma DMAIC methodology. The objective of this study is to identify the best possible tools and techniques to tackle premature failure of CTRBs whilst in service due to early presence of defects which are closely associated to the POH process. It also discusses the methodology generally adopted, tools and techniques used and benefits obtained. By mapping current state of the POH process and takt time, future state improvement can be done in order to reduce cycle time using Lean tools such as Poke-Yoke, Jidoka, 5S, SMED

Applying Bayesian Network Techniques to Prioritize Lean Six Sigma Efforts

2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yanzhen Li ◽  
Rapinder S. Sawhne ◽  
Joseph H. Wilck
Keyword(s):  
Bayesian Network ◽  
Process Improvement ◽  
Six Sigma ◽  
Manufacturing System ◽  
Lean Six Sigma ◽  
Limited Resources ◽  
Systematic Evaluation ◽  
Competitive Advantages ◽  
Proposed Model ◽  
Manufacturing Organizations

In order to retain competitive advantages, many manufacturing organizations have applied Lean Six Sigma techniques to improve production processes. The general approach for implementing Lean Six Sigma is to perform various projects to tackle specific problems or areas. However, with the manufacturing system and its external environment becoming more and more complex, it is simply not possible to solve all the problems given the limited resources. The purpose of this study is to develop a model that provides a systematic evaluation for potential opportunities to enhance the effectiveness of Lean Six Sigma. Deriving from the Bayesian Network methodology, the proposed model combines a graphical approach to represent cause-and-effect relationships between events of interests and probabilistic inference to estimate their likelihoods in the area of process improvement. The developed model can be used for assessing the problems associated with Lean Six Sigma initiatives and prioritizing efforts to solve these problems.

Using the socio-economic approach to management to augment Lean Six Sigma

2016 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 80-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean P. Goffnett ◽  
Lawrence Lepisto ◽  
Randall Hayes
Keyword(s):  
Action Research ◽  
Process Improvement ◽  
Six Sigma ◽  
Lean Six Sigma ◽  
Economic Approach ◽  
Production Environment ◽  
Organizational Assessment ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Organizational Issues ◽  
Operational Change

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a framework and a case that delineates the coordinated use of the socio-economic approach to management (SEAM) and Lean Six Sigma (LSS) to facilitate operational change. Design/methodology/approach – This study uses action research and thematic analysis to explore the augmentation of existing process improvement and organizational assessment methodologies in a production environment. Findings – Organizations are under increasing pressure to improve all aspects of business. Project leaders and consultants often follow popular quantitatively oriented protocols like LSS to evaluate explicit operational processes. Including a qualitatively oriented protocol like SEAM expands the project leader’s capability through greater consideration of implicit organizational issues. This paper presents a case where LSS was complemented by SEAM to assess a process that was entangled with several latent organizational dysfunctions. Practical implications – SEAM and LSS are accepted protocols to facilitate process improvement and organizational change. Pairing the two protocols into a SEAM-LSS model offers the strengths of each approach, while compensating for the limitations of each. The result is a more inclusive change protocol that reduces potential oversights and inefficiencies that could occur if project leaders worked within the purview of only one methodology. Originality/value – This paper uses action research to propose a model to bring qualitative and quantitative methodologies together into a larger complementary framework to use when evaluating organizational problems and opportunities. This paper aims to stimulate discussion and research that would lead to more robust process improvement protocols.

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