Project Management: Continuous Improvement Plan for Latino Engineering

This project presents a comprehensive continuous improvement plan for Latino Engineering, a mid-sized engineering company facing post-takeover challenges. The project utilizes the Six Sigma DMAIC methodology to address issues such as defects in delivered equipment, design problems, extended turnaround times, and poor customer service. The analysis identifies root causes, emphasizing the importance of coordination across teams. The project details each step of the DMAIC process: Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control, highlighting the application of Six Sigma tools, including problem definition, process performance measurement, and control in the improved process. Furthermore, it incorporates the 7 QC tools like Pareto diagrams, cause-and-effect diagrams, and histograms, to improve the processes. The plan aims to improve customer loyalty, manage project time efficiently, reduce cycle times, and motivate employees, ultimately enhancing the company's performance and product quality. The project provides a detailed framework for resolving issues, improving coordination, and implementing continuous improvements within the organization, and is contributed by a student to be published on the website Desklib.

Project Management

Table of Contents
1. Introduction...................................................................................................................................2
2. Issues in the Company...................................................................................................................2
3. Six Sigma Approach......................................................................................................................2
4. Continuous Improvement Plan for the Latino Engineering............................................................3
Define................................................................................................................................................4
Measure.............................................................................................................................................4
Analyse..............................................................................................................................................4
Improve.............................................................................................................................................5
Control...............................................................................................................................................5
5. Six Sigma Tools............................................................................................................................6
6. 7 QC Tools....................................................................................................................................6
7. Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................8
References.............................................................................................................................................9
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1. Introduction
The Project is for developing the continuous improvement plan for a company. The
company called as Latino Engineering is a midsize company which consists of 300
employees in a place called New South Wales in Australia. The founder of the company was
Dominic Latino. The company offers the design, development and the production of the
specialist engineering equipment for different oil & gas, utilities, construction and
infrastructure industries. This company has covered many investors who wanted to become a
stakeholder or even the owner of the company by buying it entirely. After spending 30 years
in the company, Dominic wanted to sell the Latino Engineering. Dominic at the age of 65,
sold his company. After the takeover, some of the senior engineers went for other
opportunities. The new owner of the company tried the best to maintain the name of the
company. But after one year of the takeover, the company received many issues from the
client side. The issues are going to be discussed in the upcoming sections and the continuous
improvement plan is going to be generated for resolving the issue. The root cause of the issue
is to be identified and then the plan is to developed to resolve the mentioned issues. The Six
Sigma approach is used for developing the continuous improvement plan for the Latino
Engineering. The steps involved in the Six Sigma approach is followed for the continuous
improvement plan. The tools techniques that are used in the six sigma approach is also
discussed in this assessment.
2. Issues in the Company
Issues that are found in the Latino Engineering company after one year of the takeover is
listed below.
 Defects are found in the delivered engineering equipment.
 Design issues and the development follow up issue with the client.
 Taking more turnaround time to resolve the issue.
 The Customer service team was not responsive.
 In some of the cases, the engineering equipment was packed and delivered
wrongly to the clients.
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3. Six Sigma Approach
Six Sigma is the approach that is used in the organizations for improving the ability of
the processes involved in the business. The increase in the performance and the decrease in
the variation of the process makes the reduction in defects and it improves the profits, morale
of the employee, product quality or service of the product. It is considered as a data driven
approach and the experts of the six sigma use the quantitative and qualitative methods to
improve the process of the organization (Rao, Bajpai and Verma, 2009). The six sigma
methodology includes a two different methodologies called as DMAIC and DMADV as
follows
DMAIC
D - Define
M - Measure
A - Analyse
I - Improve
C - Control
DMDAV
D - Define
M - Measure
A - Analyse
D - Design
V - Verify
The above mentioned steps is used to identify the root cause of the issues and then the
implementation of the solution to resolve the identified issues (Rao, Bajpai and Verma,
2009). The pictorial representation of the six sigma approach in the perspective of the project
is in the appendix 1. This six sigma approach has some benefits. The benefits of using this
approach is listed below.
 Customer Loyalty is improved.
 The use of six sigma manages time consumption of the project in an efficient
way.
 Cycle time gets reduced.
 Employees involved in the project gets motivated.
 Planning of the project follows a strategy.
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 Managing the Supply Chain (BPM, Lean Six Sigma & Continuous Process
Improvement | Process Excellence Network, 2017).
4. Continuous Improvement Plan for the Latino Engineering
The steps to be followed in the six sigma for the continuous improvement plan in the
Latino engineering company is discussed in this section. The diagram for DMAIC is
represented in the Appendix 2. The steps in the DMAIC are considered as the backbone for
any process improvement. This DMAIC makes the team members of the project to identify
and analyse the root cause of the issues, then to resolve the issue (Das and Roy, 2009). The
plan is drawn and represented in the Appendix 6.
Define
Define is the first step that makes the project success. The elements that are essential for
the project is to be accomplished by using the following steps.
1. Sponsorship attainment for the project.
2. Project Charter and objective of the project
3. ct establishment.
4. Determining the stakeholders and the team members.
5. Establishment of the team rules
6. Planning and organizing the kick off meetings in an appropriate way.
Addition to the mentioned steps, Process maps and the maps for the deployment are to be
determined for a successful project (Reddy and Reddy, 2010).
Measure
The second step in the six sigma approach is the Measure step. The decision has to be
made on a gut feeling. There should not be any hesitation in making decisions. The base
decision should be taken in the basis of data and its facts (Uluskan, 2016). The steps to be
followed in the measure step is listed below.
 Identification and define the operations of the key metrics
 Development in the Data Collection plan.
 Perform an analysis in the measurement of the system whether the deliverable is
accurate.
 The charts has to be drawn considering the baseline.
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 Charts and graph has to be represented so that the team members will understand
the process easily and then the errors, defects can be reduced and the turnaround
time can be minimized (Blog.iil.com, 2017).
Analyse
The Analyse step is the process to find the root cause of the problem that the client face
in the deliverable. The root cause for the issue is that not understanding the scope of the
project and the mistakes that are made by the team because of the less coordination between
the different sectors of the manufacturing process. The materials, methods, machines, and
people involved in the process should be interrelated so that the mistakes can be avoided. The
cause and effect relationship should be found among machines, materials, method and
people. Considering the issues that are found in the Latino Engineering company, the root
cause found is that the misunderstanding in the sectors or there is no thorough review on the
products manufactured by the company. For instance, if the client complains that there is an
issue or defect in the equipment, then it is the mistake of the quality team which missed to
check the damage or quality of the product. Likewise each issue is concerned with every team
of the project (Deshmukh and Lakhe, 2009).
Improve
The improve step is the step that is to be processed after define, measure and analysis
steps. The root cause found in the above steps has to be considered and the solution for
resolving the root cause is to be implemented in this step. The resolution for the root cause is
to ensure the better coordination among all the teams. For instance if an issue is complained
by the client, then it is very important to take the issue immediately and work on it very
quickly. To reduce the turnaround time for resolving an issue, the team has to split the work
and it has identify the main problem and work on it soon (Mandal, 2012). A chart has to be
drawn and represented in the pictorial form to ensure the clients that the improvements are
made in the products in which they had a issue. The chart is represented in the Appendix 5.
The coordination among the teams should be improved to solve the root cause of the issue.
Control
The control step is the most significant step in the DMAIC steps. The improvement steps
will be implemented in the process but initially the steps will not go good. It will take time to
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set. The aim of the control step is to make sure that the recommendation of the team has been
implemented correctly and successfully. If there found any deviation in the implementation
step, then it should be controlled in this step. If for an instance, because of the defective
products the manager will force the quality team to cross check all the products to make sure
that there is no damage in the product. For this reason, the quality checker should not take
more time for one product, then it should be controlled. so that the consumption of time in
testing the products will come into a control (Deshmukh and Lakhe, 2009).
5. Six Sigma Tools
The experts of the six sigma always use the qualitative and quantitative technique to
make the continuous improvement plan in an effective way (Timans, Ahaus and Solingen,
2009).
Problem or Requirement Definition
 A project charter should be drawn to determine the aim or scope of the improvement
team.
 Voice of the customer is to ensure the feedback of the client.
 Value stream map has to be drawn to determine the overview of the whole project
(Narasimhan, 2009).
Process Performance Measurement
 Process map has to be drawn for monitoring the progress of the activities.
 Failure mode and effect analysis to identify the product, service and failures in the
process (Timans, Ahaus and Solingen, 2009).
Improvement in the performance
 The improvements in the process performance is made by finding the root cause of
the problem.
 The root cause is the starting point where the issue has started (Asq.org, 2017).
Control in the improved process
 Control plan has to be developed to keep the improvement implementation in its
current level.
 Statistical process control is applied to monitor the behaviour of the process
 Mistake proofing which is known as poka-yoke to make the errors completely
impossible or instantly detectable (Narasimhan, 2009).
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6. 7 QC Tools
7 QC tools - Quality Control tools. The 7 QC tools is used to make the improvement in
the process continuously. It was suggested by Walter Shewhart.
1. Pareto Diagram
2. Cause & Effect Diagram
3. Histogram
4. Control Charts
5. Scatter Diagrams
6. Graphs and Charts
7. Check Sheets
Pareto Diagram
Pareto Diagram is one of the 7 tools that is used to arrange the items in an organized
order according to their magnitude of the contribution. This tool is used in the Statistical
Project Control and in improving the quality for prioritizing the projects. The tool is used to
tabulate the items in an order using X and Y axes (ToughNickel, 2017).
Cause and Effect Diagram
A cause and effect diagram is the tool that is used to represent the inter relationship
between the results or the effects and its possible causes. It is one of the effective tools in 7
tools that generate ideas systematically about the major causes of the problem and to
represent those causes in an uniform structured form. This diagram is also known as Ishikawa
Diagram (ToughNickel, 2017). The inter relationship or the cause and effect diagram is
represented in the Appendix 3. Here the methods, materials, methods and people are
considered in the cause and effective diagram. As these are the main elements in the
manufacturing industry, it is considered as the elements in the cause and effective diagram.
After considering the main groups or element of the process, then it is very important to
brainstorm to determine the causes and subsidiary causes that are possible in the groups that
are identified.
Histogram
Histogram is also called as the Frequency distribution diagram. It is represented in the
form of bar charts. The bars can be either vertical or horizontal. Collect the data that is
involved in the issue. Draw X and Y axis, decide the elements that are to be included in the x
axis and that in the y axis. Draw the bars either vertically or horizontally to represent the
frequency. A histogram is drawn to identify the issues involved in the wrong deliverable to
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the clients. Therefore the causes for the wrong deliverables issue is represented in the
Appendix 4. The things that can be a cause for the wrong delivery are taken and bars are
drawn with respect to those issues that are involved in the wrong orders (ToughNickel, 2017).
Control Charts
Variability is common in all production processes. These type of variations occurs in the
process because of the two reasons that are Chance causes and Assignable Causes. The
control charts can be p-chart, np-chart, c-chart and u-chart. P-charts are used in the case when
the sample size is the constant value and the np-charts are represented when the sample size
is a variable. C and U charts are used to plot the number of defects that are found in the
process (Magar1 and B. Shinde2, 2014).
Scatter Diagram
If a problem analysis is to be performed, then it is important to find the relation between
the variables that are involved in the process. The relation may exist or it may not exist
between the variables of the process. If it exists, then it may be either positive or negative. It
may be simple or complex. A best tool to study the relation between the variables is the
scattered diagram (Magar1 and B. Shinde2, 2014).
Graphs
Graphs are the pictorial representation of the data. Pictorial representation of the data
makes a clear understanding. There are various types of graphs as follows
Bar Graph - For comparing the size of the data.
Line Graph - Used to represent the changes evolved in the data.
Gantt Chart - for planning and scheduling.
Radar Chart - To differentiate the data before changes and after changes.
Band Graph - To represent the data before applying changes and after applying it
(Magar1 and B. Shinde2, 2014).
Check Sheets
Check Sheets are the tools that can be used for the data collection. Data that are collected
using the check sheet, should be classified in a meaningful way. The classification makes to
understand the relation between the data and the data dispersion. This is called as the
Stratification Analysis (Magar1 and B. Shinde2, 2014).
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7. Conclusion
The assessment is the analyse about the company called Latino Engineering which is
located in New South Wales in Australia. The Company has taken over by the investors. The
issues are complained by the clients regarding the engineering equipment of the company.
The root cause of finding the issue has been discussed using the six sigma approach. The Six
Sigma approach consists of 5 steps namely Define, Measure, Analysis, Improve and Control.
The six sigma tools that are to be used in the resolution of the issue is discussed. The 7 QC
tools which are used in the manufacturing process traditionally is explained in detail.
According to the 7QC tools, some of the diagrams are drawn and represented in Appendices.
The 7 QC tools has to be applied in the process to resolve the issues. The company would
have come across some idea about the issues that are involved in the delivery of the product.
Six Sigma approach is the effective approach that is used in the continuous improvement plan
for the Latino Engineering Company. If this project management strategy is followed by the
company, then it may be easy to find the issues of the process. Then the resolutions for the
identified issues can be determined easily.
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Appendices
Appendix 1
Appendix 2
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Appendix 3
Appendix 4
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Appendix 5
Appendix 6
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