Productivity improvement in the stitching process: a Six Sigma case study of the footwear industry

Abstract

This paper introduces the concept of Six Sigma in the footwear industry. Various Six Sigma tools and techniques have been applied for measuring and analysing the reasons for defects in the shoe-making process. DMAIC was applied in the footwear manufacturing industry and sigma level observed was 3.77. The efforts have been made to reduce the defects and improve the sigma level with the help of Six Sigma DMAIC methodology. However, further improvements in the process are subject to following the various control measures suggested in the paper. With the help of general factorial design and Taguchi’s experiments, the key influence factors of the optimal combination for cooling time, temperature, viscosity have been obtained to analyse their effect on adhesive strength of the material used in the shoe-making process. Key techniques used in the analysis are Pareto analysis, cause and effect diagram, nested ANOVA, Duncan’s test and Taguchi’s design of experiments (DoE).