An Application of Six Sigma DMAIC Methodology for Improving the Yarn Productivity in Textile Industry

An Application of Six Sigma DMAIC Methodology for

Improving the Yarn Productivity in Textile Industry
Ashish Gore
(MBA, Operations Management and Supply chain Management)

Abstract : This article presents a quality improvement study applied at a yarn manufacturing company based
on six sigma methodologies. More specifically, the DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control)
project management-methodology & various tools are being utilized to streamline processes & enhance
productivity. Defects rate of textile product in the yarn manufacturing process is so important in industry
point of view. It plays a very important rate for the improvement of yield & financial conditions of any
company. Actually defects rate causes a direct effect on the profit margin of the product & decrease the
quality cost during the manufacturing of the product. By checking & inspection of defects of product at
different point in production where more defects are likely to happen. A thousand defects opportunities create
in the final package of yarn. That’s why it is decided to do work & implement DMAIC methodology in winding
departments where the final package of yarn is make.
Keywords - Six Sigma; DMAIC; Lean manufacturing; Yarn manufacturing.

I. INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

Organizations look for ways to improve their production and management processes in order to remain
competitive in the market. This calls for ways to reduce production cost, enhance productivity and improve
product quality. Therefore, organizations must utilize all the available resources efficiently and effectively in
order to cater their customers with high quality products at a low price. For these reasons, researchers all over
the world proposed several improvement strategies and tools to satisfy organization’s needs. Such initiatives
include Total Quality Management, Quality Awards, Total Preventive Maintenance (TPM), Lean and Six
Sigma. The lean concept, which was initially referred to as the Toyota Production system, concentrates on the
flow of the entire processes rather than on the optimization of individual operations. Womack (2002)
specified the main components of lean management system as follows:
 Identify process value from the customer perspective.
 Identify the value stream for each product and eliminate all types of wastes currently imbedded within the
production process.
 Try to develop a continuous production process.
 Develop the pull management technique within the production lines.
 Manage toward perfection.
The main thing of Six Sigma is to taking the existing product, process and improves them in a better way. It
is a very powerful approach to achieve the financial goals for the organization and improving the company’s
value by the following:
 Data driven
 Project based
 Disciplined and systematic
 Customers focused (internal & external)

Six Sigma, on the other hand, is a data driven methodology used to identify root causes for variations in a
production processes in order to achieve organizational excellence. Six Sigma management strategies require
process improvement through identifying problem, root causes, process redesign and reengineering, and process
management. Six Sigma follows a model known as DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and
Control). Therefore, Six Sigma starts by analyzing defects and lean initial focus is on customer, process flow,
and waste identifications . However, using one of these tools has limitations. Since lean eliminates the use of
Six Sigma’s DMAIC cycle as a management structure to define required process capabilities to be truly lean.
On the other hand, Six Sigma eliminates defects but does not address how to optimize the process flow. Hence,
applying both Six Sigma and Lean tools sets results in far better improvements than could be achieved with
either one method alone .
DMAIC is a systematic six-sigma project management practice inspired by Deming's PDCA (Plan, Do,
Check, and Act) Cycle. The process consists of the five phases called Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and
control.
The Define phase concentrates on forming the team, defining the project's goals, mapping the process,
identifying customers, and identifying the high impact characteristics or the CTQs (Critical to Quality). The
An Application of Six Sigma DMAIC Methodology for Improving the Yarn Productivity in Textile Industry
Measure phase consists of defining and executing a systematic data collection plan for the key measures (CTQs)
for the targeted process. Data collected in the Measure phase are analyzed in the Analyze phase to identify the
root causes behind the gap between the current performance and the goals identified in the first phase by
defining the main type of wastes embedded within the production processes and the root causes for these wastes.
The Improve phase focuses on identifying expected solutions, suggest set of alternative solutions to enhance
performance, and implement some of these solutions according to the available budget and the expected cost for
each alternative. The Control phase concentrates on creating and implementing monitoring and response plans
for sustaining improvements, spread out the outcome and the methodology for the whole organization, insure
the establishment of a new culture within the organization. Moreover, operating standards and procedures are
documented and published in the Control phase.

Sigma value increases the process performance in a better way. Another way of measure the process
capability and performance by the statistical measurements like Cp, Cpk, Pp and Ppk. The Six Sigma means a
3.4 % defects part per million or yield of 99.9997% (perfect parts). Following is the table 1 of comparison of
different Sigma values at different defects part per million and capability of process here .

Table 1. The Comparison of Different Sigma Values

SIGMA DPMO COPQ CAPABILITY
6 Sigma 3.4 <10% of sales World Class
5 Sigma 230 10 to 15% of sales
4 Sigma 6200 15 to 20% of sales Industry Average
3 Sigma 67000 20 to 30% of sales
2 Sigma 310,000 30 to 40% of sales Noncompetitive
1 Sigma
An Application of Six Sigma DMAIC Methodology for Improving the Yarn Productivity in Textile Industry

II. PROBLEM STATEMENT

This paper is related to textile industry especially to Yarn manufacturing process. This paper identifies
the different problems occurring during manufacturing of yarn in the last process (winding), DMAIC tool is
applied by the practical examples which was applied in practical field. It is very complicated and important
process and it’s difficult to achieve the quality throughout the process.
The main reason is the raw material, which do not possess good properties such as maturity, degree of
reflectance, impurity and fiber strength and shade variation from bale to bale. The main thing in this paper is to
reduce the defects rate and also reduce fault opportunities in the final yarn, As in Six Sigma methodology, if we
decrease the opportunities in the final product then we can increase the Sigma value which shows that the
process improvement. We have also applied a basic tool of Six Sigma like DMAIC which highlighted the
different phases of tool with respect to process behavior and importance in the manufacturing of yarn. Winding
department where we have applied DMAIC tool is critical as compared to other departments in the process as it
cause an increase defects rate percentage in the final product of yarn.

III. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

During production of different processes in the yarn manufacturing process, there are failures at many
stages. All such failures are recorded in the manufacturing plant. It was observed that worst defects % is at
winding stage. So it was decided to implement DMAIC tool in this process to eliminate a large variation in it.
During this it was focused in all three departments such as Quality, Maintenance and Production. I followed all
the standards which play important role for the satisfaction of the customer needs and expectations.
Maintenance play important role in every field. It play very important role regarding to quality.
Because of proper maintenance, quality of product will be better. So it was focus on maintenance department as
well. Winding section is a very critical department in yarn manufacturing process.
In this department there are a lot of chances of defects opportunities in the final yarn. It is the last
section of manufacturing process where defects can be minimized or eliminated. After manufacturing of yarn
from deferent departments in the preparatory process and ring department it is ready to make a shape into final
cone form so that it can be shipped to customer for use. During winding process of yarn following objectives are
met.
 Scanning and faults removing
Electric Scanners (uster) is used for checking and elimination of yarn faults during winding process. This
process is called Usterization of yarn. Such faults are called scan-cuts.
 Splicing of broken or cut yarn
Auto splicing is done for broken yarn pieces to eliminate yarn knots and bad piecing.
 Bigger package
Conversion of yarn from small ring bobbins to bigger yarn cones of different international standard or as per
requirement of customer.
During achieving above objectives or making of winding cones some faults are created during the
process. These faults need to be controlled through monitoring and continuous study. Most of the winding faults
are very dangerous for the next subsequent process which can be warping or knitting or doubling. We can face
complains from customer of breakage of yarn during unwinding process.
An Application of Six Sigma DMAIC Methodology for Improving the Yarn Productivity in Textile Industry

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