Lean Six Sigma Implementation in a Food Processing SME: A Case Study

Lean manufacturing has been acknowledged as a methodology to eliminate waste, while Six Sigma has been regarded as a diagnostic tool to improve processes by eliminating variation. The important objective of both of the methodologies is to identify the most critical processes to generate savings for an organization. Lean Six Sigma integrates these two approaches into an effective hybrid method, which combines the variability elimination tools from Six Sigma with the waste elimination practices from lean manufacturing. This paper aims to study the application of Lean Six Sigma in a medium-sized confectionary. The results show that the company successfully applied the Lean Six Sigma methodology and saved a considerable sum of money by reducing overfilling of final product (ginger bread). This study proposes a Lean Six Sigma framework to reduce overfill and rework. The proposed framework integrates lean tools and Six Sigma Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control methodology to reduce overfill and rework to enhance the bottom-line results. The result of this study will help food small- and medium-sized enterprises to effectively apply Lean Six Sigma to reduce variability and consequent waste in their production process. Copyright (c) 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Copyright (c) 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.