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Abstract
The huge problem facing garment industry is sewing defects so customer has two responses versus this problem. In case of producing unacceptable defects; customer rejects the product, or set a fine. Consequently company loses the customer and high percent of sales (25%-50%) as cost of poor quality. One of the most important benefits of Six Sigma is the potential increase in market share with the high global competition market, especially in garment industry. Garment industry depends on manpower and many variables, such as machines, management, fabric types, maintenances, etc., which increase the chance of producing defects. So Six Sigma is more suitable methodology to reduce potential problem associated with such uncontrollable variables.
In 1986, Bill Smith, a senior engineer and scientist within Motorola’s Communications Division, introduced the concept of Six Sigma in response to increasing complaints from the field sales force in regards to warranty claims. It was a new method for standardizing the way defects are counted, with Six Sigma being near perfection, Smith crafted the original statistics and formulas that were the beginning of Motorola’s Six Sigma methodology [16].
Six Sigma is not new Quality Program, but it is an extension of TQM (Total Quality Management). Six Sigma fixes identifiable, chronic problems that directly impact the organization bottom line. It is the first Quality Program concerns with the customer satisfaction. Six Sigma is already understood worldwide as a measure of excellence. Six Sigma projects are selected to reduce or eliminate waste, which translate into real profit. Six Sigma methodology is DMAIC that defines, measures, analyzes, improves, and controls the vital few processes that matter most, to transfer quality improvement directly to bottom-line results. The goal of Six Sigma is not to achieve six sigma levels of quality but the most visible impact of Six Sigma is improved profitability and immediate jump in profit margins that by using the old tools in an arranged order, to achieve a greater effect [2,7].
The main factor of six sigma success is by selecting the project in a right way after forming a good helpful team. There are many myths and misunderstandings about Six Sigma such as Six Sigma works only in manufacturing settings, it doesn’t include customer requirements, it is repackaged TQM, and finally it uses difficult-to-understand statistics. Six Sigma has achieved a great success in different businesses whether these are manufacturing or non-manufacturing organizations [11].
This research deals with implementation of a Six Sigma Green Belt project in garment manufacturing facility. The selected garment manufacturer produced high percent of rework defect that granted consideration of Six Sigma application. The proposed methodology has reduced the process variations especially caused by reworking Skipped Stitch defects. Three critical defective operations were identified by Pareto diagram. These are Collar Attach Operation, Sleeve Hemming Operation, and Tape Hemming Operation. The research also considers identifying the source of defects and setting solution for improvement to avoid such defects by following a tight control stage to sustain the improvements. Thus dramatically reduce the rework and its associated high cost. Improvement solutions were set to avoid all reasons of Skipped Stitch occurrence. These solutions were followed by a strong control stage to sustain the improvement results. As a result, a breakthrough improvement was achieved in these three sewing operation by reducing the defect per unit percentage as an impact of DMAIC implementation.
This thesis contains 8 chapters. First of them is introduction chapter that highlights the importance of applying Six Sigma in garment industry. Secondly, literature of review chapter introduces history and definition of Six Sigma, and the relation between Six Sigma and TQM. In addition, it presents some of case studies of implementation of DMAIC methodology in service and manufacturing fields especially in textile industry. The third chapter involves the statistical tools used in this search to apply Six Sigma system. Next is aim of work Chapter which introduces the goals of implement DMAIC in garment industry such as reducing number of defects to meet customer satisfaction. Beside that this section sets its target to prevent producing reworks defects especially skipped stitch defects. The fifth section is DMAIC Methodology Implementation which determines the specific details as place of this implantation, team members, and tools used in DMAIC phases in order. In addition, it represents used software where the statistical data and analyses were carried out using Minitab, SigmaXL and Excel software programs. This chapter illustrates a vital point that persuaded labors to stop producing defects by showing the risks of both time and money. The following chapter presents the results and the discussion based on statistical assessment. This chapter contains three parts: results, analysis, and achievements of DMAIC. After that, Conclusion chapter summarizes the major findings based on the results as well as the research accomplishments. The second part of this section is the proposed future works. The last chapter lists references in alphabet order. Finally, appendices, and glossary sections which are added to complement related topics and explain the abbreviations which used throughout the thesis