Lean Six Sigma Implementation in Waste Reduction, Environmental Sustainability and Safety Risk Management

Abstract

The main goal of this article is to illustrate how the application of lean six Sigma may reduce waste, enhance environmental sustainability, and control safety risks in a manufacturing company. Lean manufacturing seeks to decrease/eliminate waste, whereas Six Sigma aims to reduce defects by reducing variability in the system. The goal of this article is to propose a model for Lean Six Sigma that will allow using the tools of Six Sigma and Lean manufacturing to reduce waste by reducing the percentage of returns, sustain the environment by reducing the empty contaminated return packages, and control the safety risk by using FMEA (Failure-Mode and effect analysis) in risk assessment. A DMAIC (Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control) project is used to carry out the empirical case study. This Lean six sigma DMAIC methodology is used in parts to gather and examine data about the present process.