IOSR Journal of Mechanical and Civil Engineering (IOSR-JMCE) e-ISSN: 2278-1684,p-ISSN: 2320-334X, Volume 12, Issue 2 Ver. I (Mar - Apr. 2015), PP 01-04 www.iosrjournals.org DOI: 10.9790/1684-12210104 www.iosrjournals.org 1 | Page Implementing Six Sigma Approach for Quality Evaluation of a RMC Plant at Mumbai, India A. D. Lade 1 , A. S. Nair 2 , P. G. Chaudhary 2 , N. R. Gupta 2 1 (Assistant Professor, Civil Engineering Department, Sinhgad Academy of Engineering, Pune, India) 2 (Student, Final Year Civil Engineering Department, Sinhgad Academy of Engineering, Pune, India) Abstract: There has been a steep rise in the production of Ready Mix Concrete (RMC) in India due to ever increasing demand of concrete from the infrastructure as well as the real estate sector. It has become a great challenge for the RMC manufacturers to supply consistent level of quality of concrete to the customers. In this study, the quality performance of an RMC plant at Mumbai, India, using the Six Sigma philosophy has been evaluated by using various quality tools. The existing sigma level of the process has been found to be 1.23, which is very less than the manufacturing industry and RMC production process has been found neither stable nor capable. Some recommendations for process improvement and conclusions based on the observations of the present study are also presented at the end. Keywords: DMAIC, DFSS, RMC, Six Sigma. I. Introduction The construction industry in India has seen a remarkable growth in the recent time due to flourishing of Infrastructure and Real Estate projects. This has lead to a steep rise in the production of Ready-Mix Concrete (RMC) in order to cope with the continuously increasing demand from the construction industry. Keeping in view the variables such as variation in raw materials, transportation delays etc., one of the biggest challenge faced by the RMC manufacturers is to consistently supply the desired quality of concrete to the customers. Hence there is a need to apply “six sigma” approach to the RMC production. Six-Sigma is a quality management philosophy which aims at process improvement by applying statistical process control to reduce variations in product and minimize the defects. It was first evolved, developed and applied by Motorola in the year 1986 followed by General Electric in 1995. Due to Six Sigma, Motorola managed to reduce their costs and variations in many processes and won the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in 1988 [1]. The use of Six-Sigma approach for quality management is common in the manufacturing industry but it is still in the developing stage in the construction industry due to its reliance on statistical data and rigidity. The conventional approach of quality-control in construction industry is a reactive approach and is based on taking actions after the quality failure. The Six-Sigma approach on the other hand is a pro-active approach which rings the bell before the quality failure so that the quality control team can act to avoid the quality failure of the product. The statistical background of Six-Sigma philosophy is based on the normal distribution of data in a bell curve. It is observed that most manufacturing processes follow the nature of bell curve. An important property of normal distribution is that 99.99999998 % of the area lies under ± 6σ (standard deviation), which implies that if the Lower Specification Limit (LSL) of a product is 6σ bellow the mean value and Upper Specification limit (USL) is 6σ above the mean value, then the defects can be reduced to 0.002 parts/million [2]. Motorola observed the temporal variations of the processes and stated that mean of the processes can shift up to ± 1.5σ from its original value. In that case, still the defects (points lying beyond ± 6σ) in the process would be 3.4 ppm and conformance level would be 99.9996 %. There are two methodologies for applying Six-Sigma approach for any process, namely DMAIC and DFSS. The DMAIC (Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control) is applied for process improvement of an existing process. The DFSS (Designed For Six Sigma) methodology is applied for a new process. In the present study, the DMAIC methodology has been applied to an existing RMC plant in Mumbai, India to analyze the compressive strength of the concrete. Various six sigma tools such as histogram, control charts fishbone diagram etc to analyze the process sigma level, process stability and process capability of the RMC production. II. Research Objectives The objective of the present research is to apply DMAIC methodology for quality evaluation of a RMC plant located at Mumbai, India. The steps involved in the methodology are as follows: 1. Conducting the VOC (Voice of eternal customers) survey for knowing the quality requirements of RMC to the customers and the level of quality which they are served with presently. 2. Studying the RMC production process and collecting the compressive strength data of previous production.