Medicated sweet variability: a six sigma application at a UK food manufacturer

Abstract

This paper is a case study looking at the successful application of the six sigma DMAIC methodology and associated tools to the medicated sweet ? manufacturing process in a southern UK plant of an international food manufacturer. The application was successful, and total savings of £290,000 per annum is demonstrated for an investment of approximately £13,000. The paper also lists the factors that were observed to support the success of this pilot project and describes the factors that the organisation has found to be necessary to embed the good practices developed into the organisation. These are: crossfunctional and multi-level teams lead to faster progress; mentoring/guidance of the team by experienced practitioners; training linked closely to application; and linking the results of the team to organisational objectives and measures helps to embed the practice.

A survey of structured continuous improvement programs in the Canadian food sector

“…Numerous business benefits, including reductions in cost of goods sold and cycle time have been reported in a variety of manufacturing sectors (Antony et al, 2005;Keller, 2001;Knowles, Johnson, & Warwood, 2004;Terziovski & Sohal, 2000). In this study of Canadian food companies, the results of implementing continuous improvement have not translated into similar business benefits; the cost of goods sold and cycle time were not reported to be significantly reduced by Canadian food companies that implemented structured continuous improvement programs.…”

“…The study conducted by Antony et al (2005) identified management involvement/participation in continuous improvement Knowles et al (2004) projects and linking Six Sigma to customer expectations and requirements as the two most important CSFs. The inclusion of the Voice of the Customer (VOC) in each project provides a mechanism to address customer requirements and expectations in the development and/or improvement of products, processes or services.…”

A systematic review of statistical process control implementation in the food manufacturing industry

“…Reduced non-confirming products Scott et al (2009), Alsaleh (2007, Grigg and Walls (2007a), Grigg and Walls (2007b), Kourti (2005), Tokatli et al (2005), Knowles et al (2004), Daniels (2005), Gauri (2003), Grigg (1998), Ö zdemir and Ö zilgen (1997) . Process variation reduction .…”

“…Competitive advantage Grigg and Walls (2007a), Grigg and Walls (2007b), Knowles et al (2004), Psomas and Fotopoulos (2010), Alsaleh (2007) . SPC indirectly generates higher business sales through consistently producing quality products .…”

“…Hence, SPC can play a dual role in quality control and safety assurance by integrating the Critical Control Point (CCP) concept with SPC for efficient food safety management (Hayes et al, 1997 Tokatli, Cinar & Schlesser, 2005). SPC serves as an important component of Six Sigma (Schroeder, Linderman, Liedtke, & Choo, 2008), where SPC is applied in the Measure and Control phase to maintain its improvement under the Define -Measure -AnalyseImprove-Control methodology (Dahlgaard & Dahlgaard-Park, 2006;Knowles, Johnson, & Warwood, 2004;Montgomery, 2009). However, in TQM, although SPC is suggested as one of the important techniques within its implementation (Barker, 1990;Dahlgaard, Khanji, & Kristensen, 2008;Nandyal & Welch, 1991), there is no information on 'how' and 'where' SPC should be applied as TQM is introduced as a philosophy which has no clear roadmap of its implementation.…”