Sustainable Process Improvement Through Six Sigma in a Glass Manufacturing Environment

Abstract

In the competitive environment of the 21st century, organizations need cutting edge techniques to maintain their sustainability. Six Sigma is widely used by the process industries to optimize their performance and improve their profitability. The present research aims to improve the productivity of a glass manufacturing environment by optimizing their processes. In this regard, historical data from the knowledge repositories has been scrutinized against the parameters of production efficiency, inspection losses, major breakdowns, held ware, critical defects, and customer complaints, while the Six Sigma tools of the fishbone diagram, cause and effect matrix, Pareto analysis, and failure mode effect analysis (FMEA) are used for the purpose of data analysis. Findings revealed a process variation between the current and the targeted performance. Based on the findings of DMAIC approach, significant factors affecting the glass manufacturing industry are identified. The process has seen an improvement in 2020 as compared to 2019 by 6%. Moreover, a preventive maintenance plan of ManWinwin software has been installed as a preventative measure and resultantly, the breakdown percentage is also reduced by 2%. It is observed that better cooperation and communication between different departments can further lead to productivity enhancement.