Applying Six Sigma to the management and improvement of production planning procedure's performance

Abstract

The effectiveness and efficiency of the internal business process of an enterprise are closely associated with its information system. The performance of an information system depends on its complete integration with the different departments of an organisation. This study attempts to simulate Six Sigma and offer the improvement methods of Six Sigma: DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve, and Control) to the case company in order to provide it with a strategic solution involving information systems integration to manage and/or improve the performance of the production planning procedure. After an analysis of the five phases of Six Sigma, the performance of the production planning procedure actually improved through information systems integration. However, for the planning operation, if the back-end test plant and front-end client information system can be further involved in the structure of information systems integration, the performance of the production planning procedure could be reinforced even further. This study uses questionnaires to evaluate/assess the Six Sigma DMAIC method and offers useful suggestions to the case company.

Keywords:

• Six Sigma
• DMAIC (Define
• Measure
• Analyse
• Improve
• and Control)
• information systems integration
• production planning procedure