Six Sigma DMAIC project on order-to-delivery delays

Arvalis Home Appliances sells washing machines, refrigerators and air conditioners to about 1,100 dealers. It promises delivery within 4 days of order. Last quarter the average order-to-delivery time was 6.8 days, and 22% of orders arrived late. Two of its five biggest dealers have threatened to move to a competitor, and the sales team is offering discounts to keep them.

The operations director has asked for a Six Sigma project run properly, because two earlier "quick fixes" (overtime in the warehouse and a new courier for one region) cost money and changed nothing. You will act as the Green Belt on the project.

You have: - an order extract of about 2,000 orders from last quarter, which you will generate in the Measure phase with realistic patterns and stated assumptions: order time, region, product category, payment clearance time, pick start and end, dispatch, carrier, and delivery time; - access, in role-play, to the warehouse manager, credit controller and transport lead, whose views you will record as voice-of-process notes.

You will follow the five DMAIC phases in order: - Define the problem, scope, customers and CTQ in a charter; - Measure the baseline with a check of the data you rely on; - Analyse root causes with Pareto analysis, a cause-and-effect diagram and statistical tests; - Improve with solutions tested in a pilot; - Control with a control plan, control charts and a handover.

Done means a measured reduction in late orders in the pilot, statistical evidence that it is real, a control plan the warehouse can run without you, and a storyboard the director can show the board.