Process improvement in an Indian automotive part manufacturing company: a case study

Problem-solving and ongoing procedure enhancements are key elements to obtaining quality improvement in business operations. Many process improvement strategies have been suggested and implemented in organisations, where define, measure, analysis, improve and control (DMAIC) is mostly applied. This study presents a practical application of an improved version of DMAIC, for reducing the defects generated through a process within the auto part manufacturing firm. The paper reviews the most commonly used lean and Six Sigma tools, explicitly, DMAIC, its modifications, and restrictions. Based on this, the study provides define, measure, pre-analysis, experiment, analysis, improve, and control (DMPEAIC) methodology. Finally, DMPEAIC is tested in a case study. The results obtained from the case study shows that DMPEAIC is an efficient approach resulting in the case study company to get a reduction of 76.4% defects in problems related to maintenance methods, and informal issues.