Six Sigma Methodologies for the Quality Improvement of Oil Pump Binding in H-Series Engine Assembly

Manufacturing performances tend to produce defects due to various reasons which can be improved by identifying and eliminating them using six sigma. The Six Sigma approach has been increasingly adopted worldwide in the manufacturing sector in order to enhance productivity and quality performance and to make the process robust to quality variations. This paper deals with the application of lean Six Sigma in finding out the root cause for Engine block-Oil Pump binding in the six cylinder engine assembly and hence reducing the internal customer complaints and quality improvement. In the present work, DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control) has been used to reduce the engine quality losses and solve the oil pump binding problem. In define phase, baseline data collection of customer complaints from eleven months has showed that 20.7% of internal customer complaints are due to Block-Oil Pump Binding and problem is defined by selecting the core issues concerned using Project Charter, SIPOC, Pareto Diagram and CTQ. In the measure phase, data related to dimensions of engine block was collected to determine the current performance and the process capability following the validation of measurement system by MSA study. During Analyzing phase root causes of Oil pump binding were identified using shainin tools like component search to reach the root cause. In the improvement phase solutions were arrived for the root causes and finally in the control phase various tools were implemented for tracking the process and putting it under control. The study reports process quality improvement through reduction in defects, from 8880 ppm to 2966 ppm.