Using six sigma tools to measure and improve the performance of a manufacturing supply chain

Abstract

Financial Success of any business is dependent on the amount of value it can deliver to its customers. Before the mid 1900s most organizations had a one dimensional focus as they concentrated on cost only. However rapid growth in technology and market globalization have led to a different scenario altogether and these days, in order to materialize the potential financial gains, businesses are required to focus on other dimensions of value addition as well. The problem lies with the fact that performance improvement with respect to other aspects of value addition like customer service, timely delivery, and functional quality tends to increase cost. And increasing cost will more than likely drive the customer away. This is exactly why supply chains have assumed a critical role in today’s economy because efficient supply chains lead to lower operating costs, which gives management some extra space to invest in improvement initiatives without actually increasing the final price of a product or service. This relationship between supply chain efficiency, cost, and performance improvement has led to a lot of research in this field over the past 15 to 20 years and this is also the primary motivation behind this thesis; where we have attempted to develop a framework for improving supply chain efficiency with respect to product quality and timely delivery by means of synchronization.