6-2 Case Study 3: The DMAIC Process
Ashely Bigley
OL-324-J5879 Managing Quality 22EW5
June 8, 2022
Stephen Schroeder
Introduction
While working for Cobalt Boats, an opportunity for process improvement presented
itself. In this company, there were multiple locations in the town of Neodesha, KS. While not a
large town, on person was employed as a driver to collect components from the satellite locations
and bring them to the main plant for use. One such location was the metal shop. When
fabricating a fiberglass boat, it is necessary to laminate aluminum tapping plates into the layers
of fiberglass in places where hardware and components will be attached to the boat to prevent the
fiberglass from breaking. These tapping plates of assorted sizes for different applications and
locations on the boat were provided to the main plant by the metal shop. The tapping plates were
set up on a min max in the warehouse at the main plant. There were over 25 different thicknesses
and sizes of tapping plates that were used across 15 models of boats. Frequent stock outs
requiring emergency orders to be cut by the metal shop and causing delays in fiberglass had
become an issue.
Define
In the phase of initiating the project, I identified key stakeholders of the process.
Representatives from fiberglass, warehouse, metals shop, the driver and myself formed a cross
functional team. The goal of this team was to eliminate stock outs of tapping plates in the main
plant. The outputs of this step are the project charter, the project team, and a list of clear
customer requirements (Goetsch, D. L., & Davis, S, 2020). While defining the current process,
additional issues came to our attention. There were tapping plates in the warehouse which were
sizes no longer used that were on an aged inventory report. There were also instances in which
the wrong size tapping plates were picked by the warehouse and delivered to fiberglass. The
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customer requirements were defined as having the correct tapping plates for each boat available
on time, at the point of use.
Measure
To understand the process in a visual way, the team completed a value stream map of the process
Value stream mapping (VSM) is a tool that uses a flowchart to document each step in a process
(ASQ, 2022). In this step we created the current-state map. We looked at each step in the process
and mapped how material and communication flowed throughout. We then put together a data
collection plan. As we were under pressure to resolve the issues quickly, we decided om a two-
week window for data collection. The warehouse was given a sheet to document the orders they
placed with the weld shop and document the time to order fulfillment. The fiberglass supervisor
was given a log to track how many stock-out instances there were in the time frame and how
much time was lost due to them. The driver was given a log to track how many additional trips
were required