Abstract

The implementation of Six Sigma and Lean methods has become more and more commonplace in the traditional manufacturing sector. Traditional manufacturing comprises, predominantly, casting, forging and the adjuvant machining operations. Although much of this work has migrated to developing countries, including India, China and the Eastern European countries, there are still profitable casting/ forging operation in the USA and would benefit from Lean Six Sigma initiatives to be even more cost and quality competitive. The adoption of Lean Six Sigma methodology has accelerated due to the high defect rates at many production facilities, leading to high number of defective parts or parts needing expensive alteration and rework. Despite the increased usage of Lean Six Sigma tools, a guidance for what may be expected as successful implementations LSS in terms of the popular metrics (process capability, sigma level, rejection rate, etc.) is not found in the literature. This paper will review the various works on the subject to analyze the tools and methods used, as well as the results and purposes of the six sigma initiatives to establish a guidance for expected results of such implementations. The findings documented in various works will also be analyzed to identify commonalities and to establish a menu of the most common tools used and the most common performance indicators for speedy and successful Lean Six Sigma implementations in traditional manufacturing.