International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Technology (IJMET)

Volume 9, Issue 12, December 2018, pp. 954–961, Article ID: IJMET_09_12_096
Available online at http://iaeme.com/Home/issue/IJMET?Volume=9&Issue=12
ISSN Print: 0976-6340 and ISSN Online: 0976-6359

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NOVEL METHOD OF IMPROVING THE TEAM

GOALS PERFORMANCE LEVEL USING LEAN
AND SIX SIGMA: A CASE STUDY PROBLEM
J. Rajini
Research Scholar, School of Mechanical Engineering (SMEC), Vellore Institute of Technology
(VIT), Vellore-632014, Tamil Nadu, India

Dega Nagaraju*
Professor, School of Mechanical Engineering (SMEC), Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT),
Vellore-P632014, Tamil Nadu, India

S. Narayanan
Professor, School of Mechanical Engineering (SMEC), Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT),
Vellore-632014, Tamil Nadu, India
*
Corresponding Author

ABSTRACT
In today’s wobbly economic scenario, achievement of sustainable profit making is the
prime objective of the industries. In this paper, an attempt is made to improve the team
goals performance level, in order to attain the continuous improvement (CI) on heavy
engine product development. An integrated methodology of combining lean and six sigma
is proposed. A statistical procedural approach is developed to predict the efficiency
improvement level. Variance of the team goal achievement level is computed to ensure
the system to be transparent, less fatigue and cost effective. From research findings, it is
concluded that the relationship between the employee and employer is improved. Effort
of the employee is measured in a better way as it leads to employee satisfaction.
Keyword: Lean and Six Sigma; Integrated methodology; Continuous improvement;
Team goals achievement level; Variance;
Cite this Article: J. Rajini, Dega Nagaraju and S. Narayanan, Novel Method of Improving
the Team Goals Performance Level Using Lean and Six Sigma a Case Study Problem,
International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Technology, 9(12), 2018, pp. 954–
961
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 J. Rajini, Dega Nagaraju and S. Narayanan

1. INTRODUCTION
The current cut-throat business scenario forces the industries to innovate and improve the process
in order to reduce the product development time. The process improvement methods helps in
improving the product quality, cycle time and sustainability. The coordination between industries
and research practitioners has become mandatory to attain process efficiency. Detailed literature
survey is carried out on the process improvement methods implemented in industries across
different domains. Continuous improvements methods are concerned with the management
organizational activities for improving the sequence of process. There is a rapid increase in the
implementation of the combined approach of CI methods for the process improvement. From the
literature, it is evident that many articles reported the integrated approach of CI methods and
concluded pros and cons (Dave Nave, 2002).
Industries look for alternative approach of solving the problem beyond the conventional
methods. Implementing CI methods in an integrated approach could save millions of dollars. The
future need for the industries is to have an integrated approach for the process improvement to
attain improved efficiency level of the system. Still there is lot of scope for industries to improve
the process and products. Also, from the literature, it is evident that implementing modern
manufacturing strategies on a combined basis, yields better results. Hence, all these factors
motivated to carry out this research.
The remaining work of this paper is organised into four sections. In section 2, detailed review
of literature on lean and six sigma is presented. The integrated methodology of combining lean
and six sigma is discussed in section 3. Section 4 carries the data analysis and interpretation of
results. Research findings and conclusions are summarized in section 5.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW
Lean coined as eliminating waste by Taylor whereas Six Sigma is a CI method for improving the
quality of business practice implemented initially in Motorola (Ehie and Sawhney, 2006).
Selection of the best suited CI method is the bottle neck in any application. SS focuses on
reducing variation and increases uniform process output. Lean focuses on waste removal,
increases the flow and reduces time (Nave, 2002).
From the literature, articles presenting the discussion on implementing pros and cons of Lean
include Noori (2014), Anderson et al. (2015), Aragon et al, (2015) etc. In particular, Noori (2014)
stated that Lean initiatives have been widely used to improve productivity. Also, he demonstrated
the evidence for significant relationships between bottlenecks and lean success factors which
support the proposed hypothesis. Anderson et al. (2015) carried out his research in implementing
the Lean in a geriatric care sector in Sweden. Their findings indicate that there are many
advantages of lean in the geriatric care sector like better communication, organisation policy and
workflow. Aragon et al. (2015) describe a project to increase a food manufacturer’s productivity
by applying several lean production techniques. Also, they emphasised to have improved working
culture in the factory and to implement lean concepts.
Al-Refaie et al. (2014) stated the well-known Six Sigma approach, i.e. DMAIC approach, to
improve the performance of the shop floor. They concluded that DMAIC approach coupled with
GRA technique is found to be effective for improving the performance. Arafeh et al. (2016)
studied on implementing Six Sigma (SS) methodology to improve the performance of students
in English and enhance the teaching process by utilizing quality tools in an educational
environment. Potra et al. (2015) discussed the implementation of Design for Six Sigma (DFSS)
for new product development. Also they discussed the real-life case study problem and studied
the implementation of DFSS in marketing campaign.
Kumar et al. (2008) stated that Six Sigma is at the top of the agenda for many companies that
try to reduce cost and improve productivity. Also, they emphasised manufacturing companies to
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 Novel Method of Improving the Team Goals Performance Level Using Lean and Six Sigma a Case
Study Problem

implement thousands of Six Sigma projects every year to reap the organizational benefits at much
higher level. Alhuraish et al. (2017) stated that many companies faced difficulty to successfully
implement and sustain lean manufacturing and six sigma. Parast (2011) developed a theoretical
base for the effect of Six Sigma projects on innovation and performance of the company. Also
proposed that Six Sigma project will enhance technological innovation of the company in long
run. Aqlan et al. (2018) stated that in today's competitive and global market scenario, companies
need to focus on eliminating wastes in their processes and implement continuous improvement
initiatives.
From the literature, it is observed that many companies aims to have continuous process
improvement in product manufacturing using Lean, Six Sigma, or a combination of these two
strategies (Panagopoulos et al., 2017). Papers addressing the combined effect of Lean and Six
Sigma in process improvement include Gang Niu1 et al (2010), Niemeijer, et al, (2012) etc. In
particular Niemeijer, et al, (2012) implemented the lean six sigma in the traumatology
department, university medical center, Netherlands. Gang Niu1 et al (2010) stated that computer
manufacturers have been applying Six Sigma for continuous quality improvement and Lean
Manufacturing for reducing process waste in order to maximize output and meet customer
requirements.
Unlike all the above mentioned articles in this paper, focus is made to attain the efficiency
improvement of the team goals achievement level. A case study data of heavy engine product
development is considered. Using lean and six sigma, a statistical procedural approach is
developed to predict the efficiency improvement level. Variance of the team goal achievement
level is computed to ensure the system to be transparent, less fatigue and cost effective.

3. METHODOLOGY
The Lean and Six Sigma implemented alone improve the efficiency and the effectiveness of the
system to certain level respectively. Most of the manufacturing and service industries implement
either of the methods to improve their velocity and quality. Thus industries improve the product
and service by implementing the best suited method for their requirements. But most of the
industries lack in implementing both methods in an integrated approach. The integrated approach
of the Lean and Six Sigma is the need of the current industries to get both the benefits of these
methods. These principle techniques work in a core of the developed model as Lean in the first
layer. Six Sigma methodologies work as the second layer principle on the problem. Its main
objective is to work on the process enhancement for reducing the variation, measure the
improvements and identify the errors with specified target levels. The detailed methodology of
implementing lean and six sigma is as follows.

3.1. Setting of Goals

The director frames the goal to be achieved in line to the company’s vision. Then, the next level
joint director will take the accountability of the goal and distribute the responsibility to sub
sections based on their area of specialization. The next hierarchy level of managers takes the sub
task of goal from their respective joint directors. Again from the manager, sub team takes
responsibility of the goal to be achieved in a collective way of accomplishing the mission.

3.2. Brainstorming and Data Collection

In this work, a team of 21 members on their performance metrics of 16 goals of XYZ
manufacturing firm is considered. The data regarding Goal performance metrics of the team is
collected and tabulated in Table 1 for the month of January. The first column denotes the number
of goals, the second column denotes the description of the goal and rest of the columns denotes

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 J. Rajini, Dega Nagaraju and S. Narayanan

the achievement levels of the goals by each of the team members. Some of the columns and rows
are hidden due to space constraint.

3.3. Data Verification

The normality test is carried out for the month of January, for all the 16 goals with the help of
MINITAB as it is shown in Fig. 1 of goal 1 and Fig.2 of goal 2. The normality test reveals that
the data is normally distributed and is confirmed to the 95% of acceptance level.

Figure. 1 Goal 1(Effective Production, in hrs Figure. 2 Goal 2(Quality Metrics, in %)

3.4. Data Analysis

In the next step, each of the goal’s mean Y is calculated for the month of January using equation
1 and tabulated in the last column of the entire Table 1. The same procedure is carried out for all
twelve months data. The final goal achievement level of the entire team for entire year is
calculated by using equation 2 and is tabulated in Table 2. Further, the monthly Standard
Deviation of the goals achieved by the team members using equation 3. Standard deviation of the
team for the entire year is calculated from the equation 4. Next, actual measurements of goal is
compared to the variance of the data is computed by using equation 5. Finally, probability density
function is calculated and using equation 6.
n
1
Y =  Xi
i =1 nt (1)
n
1
X =  Yi
i =1 ny
(2)

1 nt
Sm =  ( Xi − Y )
2

n t − 1 i =1
(3)
n

( Yi − X )
y
1

2
S=
n y − 1 i =1
(4)
1 n
X = 
n − 1 i =1
(Xi − Y) 2
(5)
x − X
Z=
X (6)

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 Novel Method of Improving the Team Goals Performance Level Using Lean and Six Sigma a Case
Study Problem

4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The data collection of the goal performance achievement level of the entire team for the entire
year is carried out and tabulated in Table 1. Then, data interpretation is done through statistical
approach with the help of six sigma procedure. The mean of goal performance achievement level
of the entire team for every month is computed and tabulated in the last column of respective
tables. Further, the mean of goal performance achievement level of the entire team for the entire
year is calculated and tabulated in Table 2. In the similar approach, the standard deviation is also
computed. The normal distribution of data for the month of January is computed. All these
derived data gives a clear picture of the goal performance achievement level of entire team
members. Thus, on every month, the employee gets an inspiration regarding the performance
achievement level of the goal to be achieved. Thus, the performance metrics dash board enables
the management to have better understanding of the employee performance and to act upon the
skewed data in order to reduce the variance.

Table 1: Goal Performance Metrics of the Team for the Month of January
S. Achievement Level of Team Members Mea
Goals
No. 1 2 3 4 5 6 … 16 17 18 19 20 21 n
Effective Production 12 15 15 12 11 11 15 10 10 10 10 16 125.
1 …
Hours 0 4 0 2 8 4 2 9 5 7 6 6 7
2 Quality Metrics 98 17 90 62 58 54 … 92 49 45 76 92 36 64.2
Efficiency
3 70 63 58 32 28 24 … 60 19 15 43 16 6 35.3
Improvement
4 Customer Feed Back 88 83 78 40 35 30 … 64 23 18 42 19 6 45.2
… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …
14 Mandatory Training 96 16 41 76 32 26 … 43 83 83 63 57 51 49.4
Mentoring New
15 86 85 86 38 32 26 … 88 17 11 17 42 74 44.6
Engineers
Conference
16 98 56 86 38 32 26 … 88 17 11 13 12 8 45.2
Presentation

Table 2: Mean of the Goal Performance Metrics of the Team for the Entire Year
S. Mean Summary
Goals
No. Jan Feb Mar Apr May … Sep Oct Nov Dec Year
Effective Production 125. 124. 118. 137. 131. 125. 116. 127. 112. 124.
1 …
Hours 7 7 1 9 8 0 8 4 9 3
2 Quality Metrics 64.2 56.0 62.1 61.6 62.6 … 68.1 58.0 64.0 60.4 60.4
Efficiency
3 35.3 32.5 35.5 35.5 35.5 … 57.7 27.3 33.9 39.0 37.1
Improvement
4 Customer Feed Back 45.2 20.9 44.4 44.4 29.8 … 74.6 32.4 42.1 29.8 41.5
… … … … … … … … … … … … …
14 Mandatory Training 49.4 70.3 34.6 40.1 33.0 … 61.6 49.0 51.3 49.2 45.3
Mentoring New
15 44.6 52.8 54.1 41.9 43.2 … 54.0 43.9 46.7 49.2 47.5
Engineers
Conference
16 45.2 47.7 46.1 37.2 34.6 … 47.7 41.8 38.2 41.8 40.4
Presentation
Based on the derived data of first month, first quarter, second quarter, third quarter and last
quarter, normal distribution is shown for the effective production hours as shown in Fig. 3. From
this figure, it is evident that the distribution for first month, first quarter and second quarter is
widely distributed and more deviated rather than third and last quarter distribution. Also, it is
observed that the distribution is skewed towards the right side. In third quarter, the performance

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 J. Rajini, Dega Nagaraju and S. Narayanan

level of the team seems to be improved better than expected level and the deviations are very low
as compared to the first two quarters. In the last quarter, the deviation is slightly more than the
third quarter.

Figure. 3 Bell Curve for Goal 1

Similarly for all other goals the bell curve is plotted for first month, first quarter, second
quarter, third quarter and last quarter and the results are interpreted.

Figure. 4 Mean Summary of the Effective Production Hours

Further, as it is shown in Fig 4, the distribution of the mean of the goal, i.e. effective
production hours is plotted. From this figure it is evident that the performance achievement level
is lowest with the value of 113.1 in the month of December and highest with the value of 138 in
the month of April 138. However, the performance achievement level is closer to the mean value,
124 in the month of February and September. Also, it is observed that the cumulative mean of
the effective production hours is slightly lower than the expected mean of the team. Similarly for
all other goals the performance achievement levels are discussed for all twelve months.

5. CONCLUSIONS
From the findings of the research, It is concluded that the arithmetic mean of the goal, i.e.
effective production hours, is lowest in the month of December and highest in the month of April,
whereas closer to the mean value in the month of May. The arithmetic mean of the second
important goal, i.e. quality metrics, records very low value in February and July months whereas
closer to the mean value in the month of September. The standard deviation of the goal, i.e.
effective production hours, is lowest in the months of September and December compared to all

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 Novel Method of Improving the Team Goals Performance Level Using Lean and Six Sigma a Case
Study Problem

other months. Highest standard deviation is observed in the month of January. Same pattern is
observed for the goal, i.e. quality metrics, with lowest value in the month of December compared
to all other months. For rest of the goals, the values of standard deviation varies from ten to
twenty percent.
It is also concluded that for the ten top priority goals, i.e. quality metrics, customer feedback,
work published, project management document, project management survey, internal documents,
delegation of work, additional training, mandatory training and conference presentation, the
performance is over achieved in last quarter as compared to all other quarters. For the goals, i.e.
effective production hours and efficiency improvement, the performance is over achieved in the
third quarter as compared to all other quarters. From this observation, it is concluded that the
performance achievement level for most of the goals are achieved to the required target level
through the implementation of Lean and Six Sigma. Further, it is a fact that most of the
manufacturing firms use more than two continuous improvement strategies to improve the
efficiency level of their achievements.

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