American Journal of Engineering Research (AJER) 2017 American Journal of Engineering Research (AJER) e-ISSN: 2320-0847 p-ISSN : 2320-0936 Volume-6, Issue-10, pp-14-27 www.ajer.org Research Paper Open Access www.ajer.org Page 14 The Quality Of Brick Products In Brick Production Process Using Six-Sigma Method At A Brick Factory In Deli Serdang Regency * Risma Sinaga Department Of Industrial Engineering, Faculty Of Engineering, University Of Sisingamaraja XII, Medan - Indonesia Corresponding Author: Risma Sinaga Abstract: Increasingly tight competition in a business world drives companies to further develop ideas to obtain an effective and efficient way in order to achieve organizational goals and objectives that have been set. The same case lies with a Brick Factory in Deli Serdang regency, as one of the companies in plastic manufacturing industry. This paper aims to measure the level of quality of brick production process by using Six Sigma method. Six Sigma is a vision in improving quality to reach a target of up to 3.4 DPMO (Defect per Million Oppurtunity) through Six Sigma phases, namely: Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control (DMAIC). At the measure phase, the results showed the defect of 23,239 DPMO that produces 3.44 sigma level, while the provision of six sigma is 3.4 DPMO or 3.6 sigma level. By using the six sigma method through a series of activities of Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control (DMAIC), it is expected that solutions are provided to achieve the defects target particularly that of the most critical one. Keyword: Six Sigma, Production, Product Quality ,Brick Prodution, Factory --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date of Submission: 19-09-2017 Date of acceptance: 02-10-2017 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I. INTRODUCTION A product with high quality is one of the keys to winning market competition. A product can only survive if the product has strong competitive advantages over other similar products. This competitive advantage is primarily aimed at product quality. To be able to produce products that meet consumer’s quality standards, quality equipment and quality production processes shall be provided. From the results of observations made on the brick molding processing at the Bricks Production factory in Deli Serdang, it was found that the quality of brick products produced was always varied and sometimes did not meet the specified quality specifications. This leads to the need of conducting a research in order to determine causing factors and ways to control the production so that the quality of bricks produced satisfy specified quality specifications. Six Sigma is a method that can be used to monitor the quality of processes or products produced by the company. This method can be used to measure the level of quality that has been achieved by a company. Therefore, the use of Six-Sigma method should be tested in this research of Product Quality of Brick Production at a Brick Factory located in Deli Serdang regency. II. LITERATURE REVIEW Definition of Quality The word quality has many different definitions, and varies from conventional definitions to more strategic definitions. The conventional definition of quality usually describes direct characteristics of a product such as performance, reliability, ease of use, and so on. However, managers of a company who are in competition in a global market should pay serious attention to strategic definitions, in which quality is defined as everything that is capable of meeting the needs of customers. In everyday life, we often hear people discussing the topic of quality, including the quality of foreign-made products perceived to be better off than those of domestic products. How is quality substantively defined? This question has unlimited answers, since the meanings differ from one individual who defines it to another and depends on the context. Quality itself has several characters that are constantly changing. In principal, modern quality system can be characterized by five characteristics as described below: (Vincent Gasperz, 2002)