Implementing lean six sigma: A case study in concrete panel production

Lean Six Sigma method is recognized widely and has been implemented predominately in manufacturing rather than in the construction industry. To illustrate the point, this paper draws attention to the adoption of Lean Six Sigma in the construction industry with a case study. The combination of Lean tools and Six Sigma methodology is used on projects to improve the process by eliminating the variations and creating workflow in a process. Despite its relatively new introduction to the construction industry, it has been popularized by several organizations and adopted as the primary improvement process. The hypothesis of this experimental study was that the Six Sigma technique can be applied to the construction-based production system along with lean construction techniques. To test the hypothesis, we applied Lean Six Sigma methods on concretepanel production system in a multi-housing complex project. The paper shows how the production rate of concrete panel was improved and stabilized along with the use of Lean Six Sigma tools. Also the case study uses the variation of panel production as a critical total quality (CTQ) to measure the performance indicator of Six Sigma system.