Improving Service Quality and Utilization of Space at Almayar Food Supplies Company in Ramallah Using Lean Six Sigma Methodology رسالة ماجستير

Abstract

This study has a significant contribution to the clarification of the benefits of implementing Lean Six Sigma methodology in food service sector. It examined the impact of adopting Lean Six Sigma at Almayar Food Supplies Company in order to improve service quality and utilization of space by eliminating wastes and organizing the work environment and ultimately become more efficient in providing food distribution service. This research aims to improve service quality at Almayar Company through improving warehouse layout, improving stock management, and improving preparing sales order process by applying DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control) methodology phase by phase. The define phase included identifying opportunities of improvement by identifying and defining problems in the current status and the tools used for this purpose are project charter, SIPOC (Supplier, Input, Process, Output, and Customer) diagram and problem context diagram (PCD). In the measure phase, data were collected to measure current performance and the tools used for this purpose were flow chart, data collection sheet, and value stream mapping (VSM). In the analyze phase the collected data were analyzed to identify root causes of the problems and the tools used for this purpose were cause and effect diagram known as Fishbone diagram as well as Interrelationship diagram. In the improve phase, the root causes were targeted to reach the desired improvement and the tools used for this purpose are flow chart, 5S and VSM. Finally, in the control phase the improvements are sustained and monitored through work forms, flow charts, and checklists. It is recommended that the efforts should be repeated and target other areas. The importance of this study lies in the contributions it offers for improving the layout of the warehouse, stock management system, and preparing sales order process at V Almayar Company in order to eliminate wastes in these processes such as defects, expired products, delayed orders preparation, unutilized resources, and unorganized work place. After applying the Lean Six Sigma methodology to the targeted areas and processes, the resulting output (the gains) were as follows: improving the work environment contributed to reducing the values of defective products by 74% per year, reducing the value of expired products on shelves by 75% per year, reducing the value of defected products in trucks by 80% per year, reducing stock value of low sales products by 67% per year, reducing warehouse stock value by more than 20%, improving the efficiency of preparing sales order process from 64% to 78%, reducing cycle time of this process from 110 to 73 minutes, and reducing its lead time from 175 to 94 minutes. After organizing the workplace, improving stock management and reducing cycle time of prepare sales order process, the sales agent was able to start the process of distributing products to customers two hours earlier than the old position and ultimately reaching 55 to 65 customers per day. It is recommended that the company train other staff members on implementing Lean Six Sigma methodology to target other areas for the purpose of continuous improvement. Furthermore, the company should sustain gained improvements by utilization of monitoring forms.