Open AccessWaste and Cost Reduction for a Water Bottling Process Using Lean Six Sigma
Author(s) -
Ovundah King Wofuru-Nyenke,
Barinyima Nkoi,
Felix Ezekiel Oparadike
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
european journal of engineering research and science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2506-8016
DOI - 10.24018/ejers.2019.4.12.1682
Subject(s) - bottling line , dmaic , lean six sigma , six sigma , value stream mapping , root cause analysis , waste management , engineering , environmental science , lean manufacturing , operations management , agricultural engineering , process engineering , manufacturing engineering , reliability engineering , mechanical engineering , bottle
In this paper, Lean Six Sigma tools and techniques were utilized to determine the root causes of waste in a water bottling process and proffer solutions to remove these sources of waste in order to produce only standard quality items with minimal to zero waste generated, and also to attain a reduction in production cost. The Value Stream Map (VSM) tool was used to highlight the sources of waste in the current state of operations at the plant, as well as to proffer an improved future state of the production processes at the plant. Also, the Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control (DMAIC) framework of Lean Six Sigma methodology was employed to statistically analyze the root causes of waste in the plant. The analysis showed that the major sources of waste which constitute approximately 80 per cent of waste in the plant are water volume variation, alignment error in the shrink wrapping machine and manual inspection. After implementation of the proposed solutions, manufacturing lead time and cycle time are expected to reduce by approximately 42.1 per cent and 22.2 per cent respectively, with a reduction of 2 quality inspectors in the bottling process, leading to a drop in labour cost.