The analysis from employing Six Sigma and DMAIC indicated that the broken stitch and open

seam influenced the number of defective products. Design of experiments (DOE) and the
analysis of variance (ANOVA) techniques were combined to statistically determine the
correlation of the broken stitch and open seam with defects as well as to define their optimum
values needed to eliminate the defects. Thus, a reduction of about 35% in the garments defect
was achieved, which helped the organization studied to reduce its defects and thus improve its
Sigma level from 1.7 to 3.4.

Keywords: Six Sigma; DMAIC; Defects; Garment;

1. INTRODUCTION

Six Sigma was proposed first by the Motorola company in the mid-1980s as an approach to
improve production, productivity and quality, as well as reducing operational costs (BHOTE;
BHOTE, 1991) which has been traditionally used to measure the variation in a process
(OMACHONU; ROSS, 2004). In the Six Sigma’s terminologies, the Sigma level is denoted as a
company’s performance (PYZDEK; KELLER, 2010). Particularly, a Six Sigma level refers to 3.4
defects per million opportunities (DPMO) (STAMATIS, 2004).
Brue and Howes (2005) told that Six Sigma is a management philosophy and strategy as well as
a problem-solving and improvement methodology that can be applied to every type of process to
eliminate the root cause of defects besides being a measure of variability and organization’s
quality performance. In general, some authors argue that the main benefits that an organization
can gain from applying Six Sigma are: cost reduction, cycle time improvements, defect
elimination, an increase in customer satisfaction and a significant rise in profits (DALE; WIELE;
IWAARDEN, 2007; BREYFOGLE; CUPELLO; MEADOWS, 2001).
Markarian (2004) suggests that not only can the process improvement generated by Six Sigma be used in
manufacturing operations, but also it is the case for the project presented in this paper as well as it can
also be expanded to improve business sectors such as logistics, purchasing, legal and human resources.
Kumar et al. (2008) state that although Six Sigma is normally used in defects reduction (industrial
applications), it can also be applied in business processes and to develop new business models.

Banuelas et al. (2005) claim that other benefits such as an increase in process knowledge,
participation of employees in Six Sigma projects and problem solving by using the concept of
statistical thinking can also be gained from the application of Six Sigma. To illustrate this point,
during the utilization of Six Sigma in this research project, several tools and techniques were
employed.

One of the Six Sigma’s distinctive approaches to process and quality improvement is DMAIC
(GARZA-REYES, et al. 2010). The DMAIC model refers to five interconnected stages i.e. define,
measure, analyse, improve and control that systematically help organizations to solve problems
and improve their processes. Dale et al. (2007) briefly defines the DMAIC phases as follows:

DEFINE MEASURE ANALYSE IMPROVE CONTROL

What is the What data is What are the root Do we have the What do we
problem? available? causes of the right solutions? recommend?
problem?
What is the Is the data Have the root How will we verify Is there support
scope? accurate? causes been the solutions for our
verified? work? suggestion?
What key metric How should we Where should we Have the What is our plan
is important? stratify the data? focus our efforts? solutions been to implement?
piloted?
Who are the What graphs What clues have Have we reduced Are result
stakeholders? should we make? we uncovered? variation? sustainable?
Define – this stage within the DMAIC process involves defining the team’s role, project
scope and boundary, customer requirements and expectations and the goals of selected
projects

Measure – this stage includes selecting the measurement factors to be improved and
providing a structure to evaluate current performance as well as assessing, comparing
and monitoring subsequent improvements and their capability

Analyse – this stage centres on determining the root cause of problems (defects) understanding
why defects have taken place as well as comparing and prioritizing opportunities for advance
betterment

Improve – this step focuses on the use of experimentation and statistical techniques to generate
possible improvements to reduce the amount of quality problems or defects
Control – finally, this last stage within the DMAIC process ensures that the
improvements are sustained and that ongoing performance is monitored. Process
improvements are also documented and institutionalized

DMAIC resembles the Deming’s continuous learning and process improvement model
plan-do-check-act (PDCA) Within the Six Sigma’s approaches, DMAIC assures the
correct and effective execution of the project by providing a structured method for
solving business problems

DMAIC as a learning model that although focused on executing improvement activities,

emphasizes the collection and analysis of data previously to the execution of any
improvement initiative.

This provides the DMAIC’s users with a platform to take decisions and courses of action
based on real and scientific facts rather than on experience and knowledge as it is the
case in many organizations, especially small and medium size enterprises

Statistically, Six Sigma refers to a process quality measurement and the nearest
specification limit is at least six times the standard deviation of the process At present,
the application of Six Sigma can be found in areas ranging from facility management and
maintenance functions online market research supply chain improvement such non-
manufacturing areas as healthcare management managerial accounting, and human
resources management

The formulation and identification of useful theories related to Six Sigma development have also
been proposed. In the Six-Sigma program, sigma stands for standard deviations from the mean
of a data set, in other words a measure of variation among the data set, while Six-Sigma stands
for six standard deviations from the mean. People in industries from manufacturing to service
are witnessing the growth of a strategic continuous improvement concept called Six-Sigma

Six Sigma is a business improvement strategy used to improve profitability, to drive out waste,
to reduce costs and improve the effectiveness and efficiency of all operational processes that
meet or exceed customer’s expectations
Product Design is a process of creating a new product from an organization or business entity
for its customer. Being part of a stage in a product life cycle, it is very important that the highest
levels of effort are being put in the stage

Pointed out many components of successful Six-Sigma implementation as upper management

support, organizational infrastructure, training, tools, link to human resource based actions
measurement system and information technology infrastructure.

Highlighted that continuous improvement techniques are the recognized way of making
significant reduction in production costs. Finally, the objective of Six-Sigma is to reduce the
variation in the process and defects of the final product.

1.1. Background of the study

First the line defect rate was more than 60%, whereas the project defect rate is 43%
respectively. Because of all buyers wants to check AQL level 2.5, the target would be project
defect rate reduces less than 2%. If we want to pass our good garments for shipment within
Buyer required AQL 1.5% or 2.5%, we must fix upon an average 2% defect rate in a line or
factory.

1.2. Methodology
We have used Six Sigma and Define-Measure-Analyse-Improve-Control (DMAIC) methodology to
reduce product defects. Design of experiments (DOE) and the analysis of variance (ANOVA)
techniques were combined to statistically determine the correlation between the variable. We
have done cause and effects diagram and Pareto analysis.

1.3. Case study of Six Sigma and DMAIC application

DMAIC is a data-driven quality strategy used to improve the defect rate or processes. It is an
integral part of a Six Sigma initiative, but in general can be implemented as a standalone quality
improvement procedure or as part of other process improvement initiatives such as lean.
DMAIC procedure is applied to our project for better tools and techniques used in the driven
line for reducing defects rate.

2. DEFINE
Revere and Black (2003) suggest that a Six Sigma project should be selected based on company
issues related to not achieving customer’s expectations. The chosen projects should be focused
on having a significant and positive impact on customers as well as obtaining monetary savings.
Regarding to these suggestions, the problem selected to be tackled through this project was to
reduce quality defects on the product, which clearly comprise both an impact on the customer’s
expectations and important savings for the organization studied. al. listening to customers is
critical for a business to be successful. So, the voice of the customer (VOC) concept, which
means identifying what the Customers want and serving priorities to their needs was used in
this project to define, based on customer requirements we have select project’s objective. From
this point, voice of customer also ensured that the project problem, which was defects
reduction, became first priority for the improvement team and the organization.
A project summary, which is a tool used to document the targets of the project and other
parameters at the outset which was employed to state and present the project’s information
structure as well as the summary of the project, VOC, goal and the team’s role in this research
project. The summary of the project is presented in Table 1.

Table 1: Summary of the project.

Project Title: Defects reduction in garment products
Background and reasons for selecting the Vast number of garment products has been
project: rejected by customers due to defective. This
problem causes several types of losses to the
company, i.e. time, materials, capital as well as it
creates customer’s dissatisfaction, which
negatively affects the organization’s image.
Project Goal: To reduce the defects by 35% after applying Six
Sigma into the garments manufacturing process.
Voice of the Customer (VOC): Product’s quality.
Team members: Production manager, an experienced shop-floor
operator and the improvement project leader.
Expected Financial Benefits: A considerable cost saving due to the defect
reduction.
Expected Customer Benefits: Receiving the product with the expected quality

3. MEASURE
The ‘measure’ phase of the DMAIC problem solving methodology consists of
establishing reliable metrics to help monitoring progress towards the goal, which in this
research consisted of reducing the number of quality defects in the garments
manufacturing process. Particularly, in this project the ‘measure’ phrase meant the
definition and selection of effective metrics to clarify the major defects which needed to
be reduced.

We were using two metrics to compare the ‘before and after’ states of the garments
manufacturing process when conducting the Six Sigma’s projects. After defining the total
number of defects, Sigma level of the garments manufacturing process was calculated. Here we
have selected the C-14 line for the pilot run. The project was started from 1st November, 2016.

And its duration was taken 90 days, which ends on 31st January, 2017. The project was TQM
base. All party’s involvement to reduce the project defect rate less than 2% is our goal which will
impact our quality and efficiency.

Table2: Defects summary before the improvement.

Type of defects Number of defects Percentage of defects
Broken 412 48.53
Skip 211 24.85
Open 195 22.97
Puckering 31 3.65
Total 849 100

As a next step, a Pareto analysis [36, 37] was carried out to identify the utmost occurring defects
and prioritize the most critical problem which was required to be tackled. The collected data
was generated in the form of a Pareto chart, which is illustrated in Figure 1. The Pareto chart
shown in Figure 1 indicated that the highest rate of defects was caused by breaking stitch which
contributed to over 48.52 percent of the overall number of defects.
Therefore, the improvement team and the organization decided to initially focus on the
reduction of the broken stitch defect. The broken stitch defect rate was then translated
into the Sigma levels as 1.7 Sigma. The calculation of the Sigma metrics allowed the
improvement team and organization to have a more detail and operational definition of
the current state of the garments manufacturing process as well as the Six Sigma’s goal
in terms of the garments process improvement.
These are shown in Table 3. The next stage in the Six Sigma project and following the DMAIC
methodology, consisted in analysing the root causes of this problem as well as identifying an
appropriate solution.

Figure 1: Pareto for project line defect before implementation.

Table3: Manufacturing process – Current and Expected States.

C* = Current process performance E* = Expected process performance after the completion of the six-sigma
project

4. ANALYZE
This phase in the DMAIC improvement methodology involves the analysis of the system, in this
case the manufacturing process that produces the garment product to identify ways to reduce
the gap between the current performance and the desired goal. To do this, an analysis of the
data is performed in this phase, followed by an investigation to determine and understand the
root cause of the problem
 Figure 2: Cause and effect diagram for scope area.
Henderson and Evans (2000) defines that to gain an enhanced comprehension and
understanding of the garment production process is a main requirement for
improvement. An analysis was carried out to identify the root causes of the broken stitch
defect.

Several brainstorming sessions were conducted to identify based on the improvement

team member’s experience, probable causes as to why the problem in product occurred.
To illustrate and categorized the probable causes of the problem, a cause-and-effect
diagram (Figure 2) was constructed.

The cause-and-effect diagram, also known as Ishikawa or Fishbone diagram, is known

as a systematic questioning technique for seeking the root causes of problems
(ANTONY; BANUELAS, 2001) by providing a relationship between an effect and all
plausible causes of such effect (OMACHONU; ROSS, 2004). Once completed, the
diagram helps to uncover the root causes and provide ideas for further improvement
(DALE; WIELE; IWAARDEN, 2007).
There are five main categories normally used in a cause-and-effect diagram which is known as
5M, namely: machinery, manpower, method, material and measurement (DALE; WIELE;
IWAARDEN, 2007) plus an additional parameter environment. The possible root causes
brainstormed are illustrated in the cause-and-effect diagram shown in Figure 2. After
considering all possibilities, it was found that some stages and operations i.e. improper
threading, poor clamping or insufficient pressure (flagging), wrong size needle, wrong type of
needle for the material within the garments manufacturing process had an impact on causing
the broken stitch.
5. IMPROVE
After the root cause(s) has been determined, the DMAIC’s improve phase aims at
identifying solutions to reduce and tackle them (OMACHONU; ROSS, 2004). Stamatis
(STAMATIS, 2004) suggests the use of design of experiments (DOE), which is defined
as a statistical technique to investigate effects of multiple factors (KUMAR, et al. 2008;
BANUELAS; ANTONY; BRACE, 2005), in the improve phase.
By Garza-Reyes, et al. (2010), benefits of DOE be enhancing process yields, decreasing variability
and lowering the overall expenses. The DOE technique was used to investigate whether the
assumed correlation was statistically significant or not. An experiment was designed to
investigate whether the parameters had a negative effect on the process, causing defect
products. To do this and to analysis the experiment’s results, the analysis of variance (ANOVA)
was used. ANOVA is a statistical model for comparing differences.

Table 4: Analysis of Variance (ANOVA).

Among means of more than two populations (GIJO; SCARIA; ANTONY, 2011).
However, if there are two sources of data that need to be investigated, ANOVA, which is
a statistical methodology for analyzing the effect of the factors, is required (GIJO;
SCARIA; ANTONY, 2011). The results of ANOVA analysis are shown in Table 4.
Analysis of Variance tells that the overall variation is accounted by the average response
variables. The above analysis shows that the assume hypothesis is statistically
significant to be P-value < 0.05. So, there is a significant effect amongthe complete
process. Another hypothesis tells the mean difference between the individual treatment
mean. Some treatments have a statistically significant mean different effect that means
they are highly correlated to occur defect. They are Broken stitch, Open seam, Arm hole
and Side pocket.

6. CONTROL

The real strength of the DMAIC steps is in the Control step. Whole teams do a lot of
arduous work to improve the process and results and then implementation of the
improved process doesn’t go smoothly. There is pressure to move on, time is not spent
on having a smooth transition and the buy-in for full implementation just is not quite
there.
The result is that sustaining the improvement realized in the improve step becomes
difficult. The purpose of the control step is to ensure a successful implementation of the
team’s recommendation so that long-term success will be attained. Then the improved
process will be flow charted and these new methods will become the new standard
operating procedures.
Results will continue to be tracked so that any drift back to previous results can be
monitored and addressed in a proactive manner. The control step is about the transfer of
responsibilities and establishing plans for long-term process control.

7. RESULT
From the figure 3 we see that initial project Defect Rate (DR) was too high, that is 43 to 39
percent and which was gradually decreasing day after day within one month. Finally, it shows
the 7 percent defect rate at the end of one month.

We see from the figure 4 that initial project Defect Rate (DR) was too high that, is 17 to
14 percent and which was gradually decreasing day after day within the deadline.
Finally, it shows the 2 percent defect rate at the end of the project deadline.
Also, from the figure 5 shows that, the initial Sigma level of the project was defined 1.7 and also
shows that it is increasing day by day after implementing necessary steps for the defect
reduction project. At the end of the project is being seen that we have achieved the 3.4 Sigma
which one is good but not best.
Also, from the figure 6 shows that is the other tool for reducing the process variability
and to improve the quality based product which is process capability (Cpk) and Sigma. It
tells that the Cpk value is about 0.88 too low, that means process variability is so high
besides Z (sigma) is also about 2.88 too low. Every businessman or manufacturers
desire 1.33.

8. CONCLUSION

The primary goal of this project is to identify action initiatives that make up the help of
conducting the project in the next step to reduce the defect rate at 2%, which is the main
objective of the project and to increase the productivity and quality goods.
The Defect Reduction Project report shows that if it has been taken proper steps, then
many defects are reduced by only applying some scientific method and shows that
process capability (Cpk) is an effective tool to reduce the variability and to increase the
productivity and ensure the more quality product.
At the end of our project deadline, we have been able to achieve the desired 2% defect rate.
Finally, we can say that all types of assignable causes are able, to control by reducing defects
and continuous improvement process.