A SYSTEMATIC PERSPECTIVE ON SUPPLY CHAIN IMPROVEMENT BY USING LEAN SIX SIGMA AND AN IMPLEMENTATION AT A FERTILIZER COMPANY


Tezin Türü: Yüksek Lisans

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Marmara Üniversitesi, Fen Bilimleri Enstitüsü, Endüstri Mühendisliği (İngilizce) Anabilim Dalı, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2019

Tezin Dili: İngilizce

Öğrenci: BURAK YAKAR

Danışman: Cem Çağrı Dönmez

Özet:

In today's business world where competitiveness is increasing steadily, businesses continuously review their processes in order to survive. Small improvements in processes sometimes eliminate large costs while at the same time increasing quality or customer satisfaction. It is observed that those who convert the improvement of the processes into business culture make a difference to their competitors. The Lean Six Sigma approach has led to the realization of many successful projects by discipline the philosophy of continuous improvement. The Lean Six Sigma perspective combines the Six Sigma framework implemented by Motorola and the Lean Management philosophy which is named by General Electric.

The purpose of this study is to review the supply chain processes of an enterprise using Lean Six Sigma tools and question the adequacy of the existing situation. The company has hundreds of distributors throughout Turkey with 5 different logistics centres and two production centres. The cost items in the supply chain of the company are discussed with the finance officers and listed as insurance expense, warehouse rent, financial expense and the cost of spoiled goods.

In the application section; The DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control) techniques was used to decrease inventory time and inventory amount. By defining the current situation of the system in the Define phase, the process is analyzed with the SIPOC tool and a CTQ diagram is created to determine the project metrics. In the Analyze phase, the average inventory amount is calculated using the Kanban method. Then, the reasons that increase the inventory amount are analyzed by the fishbone diagram and after the necessary precautions, a control mechanism is established to prevent possible side effects of the project.

The average inventory amount which is 503,858 tons has been decreased to 320,721 tons and the waiting time of the inventory which is 80 days has been reduced to 52 days with the implementation of the project. 22.4 million TRY is saved with the decrease in the amount of inventory.