Report On Lean Six Sigma In Manufacturing Lead Time Improvement Project For Tesco

Discuss about the Report for Lean Six Sigma in Manufacturing Lead Time Improvement Project for Tesco.

In the present world, it is very important for companies to act smarter so that they are able to stay in the competitive market. Technology will be helpful in the analysis of the data and gain better understanding of the operations for the potential areas. The target company for the research is Tesco PLC. This is company is a leading super market in the United Kingdom. The company is into selling of groceries, clothing, Tesco club and Tesco Bank.  The product that is considered is ice cream manufacturing. The product characteristics include eggs, sugar, whole milk, vanilla beans, vanilla extract and heavy cream. SNF in the product is quite limited.  The sales of the product was however quite low. This research project includes delivery with lower lead-time and high delivery with greater satisfaction and sale of the product. Lean six-sigma will be used for improving manufacturing lead-time.

The main of the company Tesco to improve the manufacturing lead-time of ice creams.  This would be done using the Lean Six Sigma improvement process DMAIC. It is expected that the production batch size is reduced will help in reducing lead-time. The batch scheduling should be transformed to FIFO principle (Evans and Lindsay 2014). The target is to reduce average lead-time of manufacturing of ice creams by lean six sigma and 36% of improvement will be achieved (Albliwi and Antony 2013). The challenge for the company is to improve and gain further.

The focus of the project is expected to reduce the average manufacturing lead-time from a total of 7.6 to 9.6 days. There are a number of benefits from this initiative.  The reason for keeping buffer stock is to meet the demand of customer. The first thing involves long delivery lead time and buffering with capacity i.e. increasing the capacity. Demand if known prior to the future then there was no need for goods to be stocked (Drohomeretski et al.2014).  The company can lower the levels of FGI when lead-time is reduced. The benefits to customer’s lead-time are achieved through lowering the manufacturing lead-time. The other benefit involves the return of the investments. ROI is reflected from the financial aspect. This aspect does not make a deep understanding of manufacturing aspect (Pyzdek  and Keller 2014). However, this viewpoint is helpful in the understanding of the effect of the changes on the entire system. The manufacturing lead-time being shorter with low utilization helps in making faster response and high level of customer service (Albliwi, Antony and Lim 2015). There will be greater sales in the long run when the there is higher leads in customer service. With low lead-time in manufacturing, the level of inventory is also low. Low inventory levels will help in lowering the cost and increasing the profits (Gremyr and Fouquet 2012).  The lower inventory also helps in lowering the assets. These types of benefits are much wider than calculated after the implementation.

Expected Outcomes

The process of manufacturing would be involving the mixing the raw materials with that of water. The mixing will be done in the big machine mixers. After mixing the  mass is transferred to board machines. In the next process, the mass is put in the collection cylinders. Then it is cured so that it preserves for a greater amount of time. The material is then is left for the packaging and the final product is stored in the inventory (Evans and Lindsay 2014).  The lead-time in the past has not been stable. The longest lead-time was the result of bad board quality. The batches not passing the testing quality have a minimum of 25 extra waiting in curing.  The average lead-time in the past is 23.6 days.

The process is as follows:

Board Machine Performance:  There are no differences in the batch manufacturing at board machine. There are no special causes for high times of manufacturing. The average lead time for the board machine performance involves 2.3 days

Curing Hall Performance: It is normally seen that curing hall performance is for minimum of 12 days.  The average batch spent for curing hall involves 16.1 days for the manufacturing of ice cream. The key lead-time in the curing hall has been low in 2013.

Packaging Performance:  After curing, packaging is done prior it reaches FGI. This process steps tends to vary over the years in the past. The data provides that the average lead-time is 1.57 days (Pyzdek  and Keller 2014).

Batch Registration Performance: There is a batch ready at FGI so that it helps in closing the work order for a particular order for a particular batch ready in the database of company. The batch getting ready when the batch is registered in the database will have an average of two days (Assarlind, Gremyr and Bäckman 2013).

Measurement Error:  The average lead-time of manufacturing is estimated to be 23.6 days earlier. The summing of the process has shown a lead-time of 22 days. The differences in the lead time i.e. 1.6 days is divided and then added to all the processes in the section in relation to that of the total time.

The study here involves the processing of the ice cream manufacturing so that Lean Six Sigma tool is combined with the safety management system. The methodology will help in using the DMAIC cycle as a guideline for the defining of the problem, measuring of data, analysis of the current situation, improving the process and controlling of the final benefit (Sharma  Dixit  and Qadri 2016).  The whole process helps in the demonstration of reducing the time for the production of ice creams in the factories.  The materials received to the transporting of the products require 23.6 days. The DMAIC cycle involves five stages:

Expected Benefits

Define (D): Defining the problems that are seen to exist in the processing of the ice creams in Tesco.

Measures (M):  The collection of the data in the process of operation before and after the process of manufacturing

Analyses (A): Analysis of the process of the efficiency and the time perspective

Improvement (I): Providing solution for analysis

Control (C): Locking up of the benefits with proper control

The process of DMAIC was used in the present form much later than that of the  Six Sigma concept. The studies on the different DMAIC usage can be found  and this seems to work well with the  in the improvement of the project. The combination of the Six Sigma and Lean as helped in the widening of the problem scope that is used for the solving of the project problem using the process of DMAIC (Gremyr and Fouquet 2012). The Six Sigma methodology has developed from reducing the variation in manufacturing to a more detailed LSS methodology, which will help in the improvement of the process (Albliwi et al. 2014). This type of project has simply benefited from the use of the lean tools in the structure of DMAIC. DMAIC can be beneficial for the lean tools incorporation in the different phases.

The measuring of the phases after the knowing of current manufacturing process and sub process, performance is analysed. The major step would be involving seeing the performance data to search for the gaps in the current and the optimal performance. For this, there is an analysis of the theories and interviews with some of the key person in the process of manufacturing. The questions that would be answered are the potential root cause behind lead-time variation, the variations that is explained by the factors, missing factors explaining the variations , best possible lead time for system design  and  the gap that us present in the optimal and current performance. The process will help in the demonstration of lowering the lead-time for the manufacturing.

Ice cream is a complicated multiphase arrangement that consists of ice, air and fat as discrete phases. The entire structure of ice cream is the result of both the ingredients as well as all the procedures that are used in the manufacturing of ice cream. The process includes emulsification, freezing and airing. The goal is to develop a working solution for the target company in order to improve the lead-time in manufacturing. The focus should be given on the greater structures that will lead to more creaminess and smoothness. However, it should be done in a little frame of time without taking much time.

Project Plan

LSS that is Lean Six Sigma is an integration of both the Lean and Six Sigma philosophies. A new solution should be that to produce the products it is important to integrate the exact quantities of various powered ingredients (Sharma Dixit and Qadri 2016). It is important to ensure that the exact number and type of ingredients should be used. 

The focus is to reduce the process cost and it is the most highlighted part of the Six Sigma Methodology. The cost issue that might take place in this case will be related to the comparison of the high-end ice creams to that of the homemade ones. As a result, it is very important to understand the quality that can limit the issues related to cost. The managing of the ingredients cost will lead to the management of the cost. In order to control the cost, it is very important to take into consideration the reduction of the variation. The reduction of the variation is the most important factor that leads to the lowering of the cost.

The validation needs to be done with the help of some sort of testing that is often referred to as the design of experiments. After the validation of the solution, the crucial factors needs to be controlled in such a way that ensures vigorous performance. The validation of the processes are done during the improve phase that is the phase that drives the procedure. The testing will take a maximum of two days to be completed (Albliwi et al. 2014). After the completion of testing, the batch is found to follow quality standards. In order to carry out the testing process it is important to send the samples from each batch. A large number of batches will lead to the improvement in the result.

List of References

Albliwi, S. and Antony, J., 2013, September. Implementation of a lean six sigma approach in the manufacturing Sector: a systematic literature review. In Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Manufacturing Research (ICMR2013), Cranfield University, UK, 19th (pp. 431-436).

Albliwi, S., Antony, J., Abdul Halim Lim, S. and van der Wiele, T., 2014. Critical failure factors of Lean Six Sigma: a systematic literature review.International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, 31(9), pp.1012-1030.

Albliwi, S.A., Antony, J. and Lim, S.A.H., 2015. A systematic review of Lean Six Sigma for the manufacturing industry. Business Process Management Journal, 21(3), pp.665-691.

Assarlind, M., Gremyr, I. and Bäckman, K., 2013. Multi-faceted views on a Lean Six Sigma application. International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, 30(4), pp.387-402.

Atmaca, E. and Girenes, S.S., 2013. Lean Six Sigma methodology and application. Quality & quantity, 47(4), pp.2107-2127.

Drohomeretski, E., Gouvea da Costa, S.E., Pinheiro de Lima, E. and Garbuio, P.A.D.R., 2014. Lean, Six Sigma and Lean Six Sigma: an analysis based on operations strategy. International Journal of Production Research,52(3), pp.804-824.

Evans, J.R. and Lindsay, W.M., 2014. An introduction to Six Sigma and process improvement. Cengage Learning.

Gremyr, I. and Fouquet, J.B., 2012. Design for Six Sigma and lean product development. International Journal of Lean Six Sigma, 3(1), pp.45-58.

Pyzdek, T. and Keller, P.A., 2014. The six sigma handbook (p. 25). McGraw-Hill Education.

Sharma, V., Dixit, A. and Qadri, M.A., 2016. Modeling lean implementation for manufacturing sector. Journal of Modelling in Management, 11(2).