Six Sigma in Process Capability

Improvement – A Tyre Industry

N. Vivekananthamoorthy
Description of Tyre Manuf Process
SIPOC

4
 Six Sigma App Tire Manufaturing Industry
A Case Study

Process Variations of bead splice - (Wastage of Material)

 Problem identification - Voice of Customer (VOC)
 Gather the specification data of existing tire bead.
 Six-Sigma Quality tools - (Cause–Effect Diag, statistical process control.)
 Analyze the existing system - Identify the Root Cause of failures
 Improve process for reduction in process variation.
 Six Sigma Process Improvement - Tire Industry
A Case Study

Process Control Charts - systematic observation and control the process.

IMPROVEMENTS GAINED using DMAIC Methodology
Measure Improvement

Standard Deviation Decreased from 2.17 to 1.69

Process Capability Index (Cp) Enhanced from 1.65 to 2.95

Process Performance Capability Enhanced from 0.94 to 2.66
Index (Cpk)

 DMAIC Methodology - Plays a key role for Defect Reduction in

the tire manuf process in India
 Six Sigma Process Improvement – Tyre Industry
What constitutes Bead Bundle?
 Several wraps of a Ribbon of Bead Wire (tape)
Bead splice are applied to form a bead.

 Splice - Bead wire Joint – Start of first layer to last layer

Constituting the Starting point to a Termination point
( Refer the diagrams)
 This circular bead is often called a grommet
Problem - Bead Splice causing Process Variation
Improving Process Capability In Automobile Industries

 DMAIC method is the superb practice for improving

the process capability in automobile industries.

 DMAIC method aimed for process capability

enhancement of the bead splice appearing in a
tire-manufacturing industry.
 Define
Define

 The goals were defined to improve the current process.

 The most critical goals were acquired using the Voice of Customer (VOC)
method.
 These goals would be helpful for the betterment of the company

Goal Setting

 Helps and directs to bring down the defect level

and increase output for a specific process.
 Measure
Measure - The Performance Parameters

 Without measuring , the process cannot be improved.

 The goal is to establish a good measurement system.
 Process Capability index C pk , a good measure for the process
performance.
 The observations of bead splice variation were input to software
MINITAB (version 16.0)
 Minitab used for calculating various performance measures.
 Analyze
 Analyze the process to identify possible ways of bridging the
gaps (between the present quality performance of the
process and the goal defined)
 The existing performance statistics obtained with the help of
six-sigma quality tools (process capability index).
 Then further steps taken for finding root cause of the problem
using Ishikawa diagram (Cause and Effect Diagram).
 Improve

 Try Alternative ways - to do things better and

faster at low cost.

 Different approaches (i.e., project management, other

planning and management tools, etc.) were used to
establish a new approach and

 Statistical Methods were proposed for continuous

improvement.
 Control Phase

 The improvement gained through the previous steps needs to

be maintained for continuous success of the organization.

 Control phase was used to maintain these improvements in

process.

 The new process/improved process was proposed for

sustaining the quality control in the organization.
Critical to Quality
 Critical to quality (CTQ) is the quality of a product or service

 Identified by understanding the Voice of the Customer (VOC).

What are critical to quality characteristics?

 CTQs (Critical-to-Quality) - Key measurable characteristics

( Specification limits that meets and satisfy the VOCs )

 It can be the upper- and lower-specification limits or

 any other factors related to the product or service.

 Table 1 Bead splice specification
From: Six-sigma application in tire-manufacturing company: a case study

Table 1 Product Specification (tire)

Implementation of DMAIC methodology Main specification range of bead splice

to be produced 90 ± 15 mm
Avg bead splice of tire 97 mm
Problem definition Material loss due to Shifting of Splice from
Target Specification 93–100 kg/month
 The problem was identified
on the basis of the VOC
data.

 The customer complaints on

wastage of material due to
variation in the bead splice
of a particular product were
recorded.
 Establishment of
Measures

 Initially, the normality test for the

collected data was performed

 The adjacent chart shows the normal

distribution curve for the bead splice
data.

 After passing the normality test, process

capability index C pk was calculated to
measure the present process
performance using the observations of
bead splice variations.
 Six-sigma application in tire-manufacturing
From:

company: a case study S. no. Observations

Table 2 Initial observations
1 97.04
2 100.22
3 97.07
4 96.32
5 89.63
 The Observations serves as Baseline for the system. 6 94.29
7 96.01
8 99.88
 The Performance Improvements will be assessed 9
10
96.08
92.40
based these as Areas established in the Define 11
12
94.76
97.02
Phase. 13 95.51
14 96.63
15 95.69

 Process Capability Index C pk is 0.94 (Calculated 16

17
94.01
99.75

by Minitab Software which is less than 1) 18

19
96.07
97.11
20 96.24
21 96.94
 It shows that the process is not capable. 22
23
99.98
97.94
24 97.75
25 94.44
26 97.72
27 96.40
28 97.55
29 96.17
30 98.09
 Process capability
Bead Splice

The process is not

capable under existing
condtions ( Cpk =
0.94) – Not
acceptable. It needs
Improvement
 Control Charts

Data analysis

 The data were analyzed and

control charts were
constructed.

 Figure above shows the X-

bar and R-chart for the
existing data.

 From the figure, it is clear that

the few points are outside the
lower control limit;

 However, the process is in

statistical control.
 Cause and Effect Diagram
Identification of root
cause
The Ishikawa diagram
was used for finding the
root cause of the
problem, which is shown
in Fig. 4.
The identified causes of
the problem are as
follows:
 ROOT CAUSE ANALYSIS

Four no of root causes indentified as below:

 First Cause - The bead splice setting on higher side caused by slippage of bead
tape from gripper ( It is due to worn out gripper key).

 Second Cause – The variation in the advancer setting (caused due to change in
skill of worker).
This man-to-man variation attributed to lack of the standard setup guidelines

 Third cause - was related to the frequency of sensor setting.

Setting of sensor is required frequently as the former diameter changes.
However, due to non-availability of guideline, sensor setting could not change
frequently.
 Fourth Cause - The workers were not using the measuring tape.
CTQ Tree
CTQ Tree
 Improvement
Phase
S. Facts consider for Arrangements
Improve no. improve
1 Point on higher 1. Check bead splice after setup
 Corrective actions side 2. Set advancer as per guideline to
taken after identifying get target value
3. Set proximity as per guideline of
root causes former diameter
 Then Observations 2 Point on lower side 1. Measuring tape for every line
were taken again to 2. Follow-up should be done on
time-to-time basis
measure the process
performance.
 Check Bead Slice for compliance
(In Improve Phase – Take corrective actions)
[Manual Inspection of the bead bundle]
Table 4 Final observations
From:

Six-sigma application in tire-manufacturing company: a case study

S. no. Observations
1 89.0
2 93.1
3 88.9
4 91.1
5 91.5
6 93.6
7 89.6
8 87.9
9 91.2
10 89.1 The Final Observations
11 93.8
12 91.1
13 91.1
14 89.1
15 93.0
16 91.1
17 93.0
18 94.0
19 94.3
20 94.0
21 91.4
22 89.1
 Run Chart

Improvements

The collected data are

shown in Table 4 and run
chart for bead splice
variation was drawn for the
observations taken before
and after corrective actions
(Fig. 5).
From Fig. 5, it is clear that
variability in the process
reduced drastically.
Process Capability After
Improvement

The process capability index

was also computed after
implementing corrective
actions.
Figure 6 shows that after
improvement in process, the
capability index C pk value is
improved to 2.66 which
shows that process is
capable.
 Conclusion

 DMAIC approach was implemented for process improvement in tire industry.

 Originally, process capability index C pk of the current process was less than 1.

 To improve the value of process performance, the root causes of problem were
determined with the help of cause and effect diagram.

 Additional analysis of existing system was done for finding the solution of root
cause identified.

 To improve, statistical analysis made for getting the process capability index
value which was improved after taking corrective actions.

 It can be concluded that process performance of a tire-manufacturing plant can be

improved significantly by implementing six-sigma DMAIC methodology.
The main aim of this study :

 To improve the Process capability index of the Bead Splice (upto 2.66)

 This study is based on Six-Sigma DMAIC quality methodology

 It provides information about the Decision-making Power

to arrive at a stable process

 Six Sigma is a Standard of Measurement of the product or process quality

(Improvement in efficiency and excellence of process)
 Successful Six Sigma Implementation

 Implementing Six-Sigma approach - Delivering world-class quality

standards of product and service while removing all internal as well as
external defects at the lowest possible cost.
 For proper and successful implementation of a six-sigma project,
organization must have the required resources, the guidance to the
employees by top management, and leadership of top management.
 The case study company follows several quality standards, which
have research and development cell, and good coordination system for
managing the issue faced on shop floor.
 Hence, the corrective actions were implemented successfully .