Application of 6-Sigma For Service Improvement-AT International Management Institute Canteen
Application of 6-Sigma For Service Improvement-AT International Management Institute Canteen
Application of 6-Sigma For Service Improvement-AT International Management Institute Canteen
E X E C U T I V E P O S T G R A D U AT E D I P L O M A I N
MANAGEMENT
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We hereby regard our sincere thanks to Prof. Rajeev Bhatia , IMI New Delhi under
We sincerely acknowledge the canteen staff, International Management Institute for their
We would like to thank our friends for their generous support and the respondents who
gave their valuable piece of time for participating in the survey to complete the study.
2
Table of Content
Table of Content......................................................................................................................3
Executive Summary............................................................................................................................4
1 Overview: Project Selection.............................................................................................................5
1.1 Background Information.......................................................................................................5
1.2 Problems and its Symptoms..................................................................................................5
Define..................................................................................................................................................7
1.3 Goals and Expected Results..................................................................................................7
1.4 Framework.............................................................................................................................7
............................................................................................................................................................8
1.5 Assumptions........................................................................................................................10
1.6 Constraints...........................................................................................................................10
1.7 Variables..............................................................................................................................10
2 Measurement...................................................................................................................................11
2.1 Time-Motion Study..............................................................................................................11
2.2 Revised Process Diagram....................................................................................................11
2.3 Questionnaire.......................................................................................................................13
3 Analyze...........................................................................................................................................16
3.1 Cause and Effect..................................................................................................................16
3.2 Correlation & Pareto...........................................................................................................17
4 Improvement...................................................................................................................................19
4.1 Design of Experiment..........................................................................................................19
4.2 Simulation............................................................................................................................23
5 Conclusion & Outlook....................................................................................................................27
Appendix A: Questionnaire..............................................................................................................29
Appendix B: DOE results.................................................................................................................30
3
Executive Summary
4
1 Overview: Project Selection
5
Uni t : minut e
10
Eat i ng
Wai t i ng
15
6
Define
The 6-sigma team aims at reduce the total waiting time to 7 minutes or
less and remain the same level of customer satisfaction. The critical-to-quality
(CTQ) tree is shown in figure 2. There are 3 CTQs: diversity, waiting time and
serving time. And the diversity is required to be high, while the others are
required to be low.
1.4 Framework
Figure 3 shows the SIPOC framework of our project and the scope of
improvements
7
Figure 2-2: SIPOC framework
Our scope of work focuses on the IMI canteen serving process and the
related output. We do not consider the complete input and output of the
process. Within the scope is furthermore the staff of the canteen. A rough
process diagram (Figure 4) helps to illustrate the general idea of the serving
process at IMI canteen. As one can see the ‘Store’ does not lie within the red
line and is therefore not part of the project scope. We focus on the interaction
between ‘Students’ and ‘Staff’ which embodies the service process.
8
Figure 2-3: IMI Canteen serving process & the project scope
9
1.5 Assumptions
The queue of waiting for service is G/G/2, and the distribution of inter-
arrival and service time will be further studies and assigned in our simulation.
This is in accordance with the fact of the IMI canteen.
The patience of customers in the queue is unlimited and they will not
leave until they get the service. This is generally correct since the waiting
people rarely leave the queue before get the service at the IMI Canteen.
The queue follows First-Come-First-Serve (FCFS) criterion. It is true
since the IMI queue hardly has queue jumpers.
The amount of spice is infinite. It is almost true since the usage of spice is
little and it almost needs no replenishment during the process of service.
1.6 Constraints
1.7 Variables
The variables are divided into 2 categories: decision variables, which can
be decided by the 6-sigma team, and dependency variables, or outputs, which
are directly or indirectly determined by the decision variables
10
1.7.2 Dependency Variables
2 Measurement
Given on the 1st version of the process diagram we did time motion study
of the serving process of the IMI canteen. We intended to determine the time
for the single actions the cooking operator needed from the beginning of
taking the order over the cooking process till the end of the process the
handing over of the finished dish.
We did time-motion study to provide an authentic working condition and
without manipulation concerning motivation or anything else which might have
affected the outcome
11
Figure 3-1: Process diagram version 2, 1/3
12
Figure 3-3: Process diagram version 2, 3/3
2.3 Questionnaire
13
model, we added an assumption that servers are always busy.
Another main findings from the statistical result of the survey is the fact
that in average the students are not satisfied (Figure 9) with service and
waiting time at the IMI canteen.
14
No 0
Little 1
Dissatisfied 3
Very Angry 9
Then we can get the average dissatisfaction level of 3.563
15
3 Analyze
16
3.2 Correlation & Pareto
After the Selection of the most crucial factors from the Cause and Effect
Diagram a correlation analysis of these main causes was mode. After serious
consideration, some factors were not taken into further consideration since it
is not possible or hardly possible to change the factors in order to achieve
improvements. The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method is used to
determine the weight of those causes (Figure 12), excluding some reasons
that cannot be further improved.
17
Pareto Chart for Causes
1.000
1 0.9007
0.8085
0.8 0.6836
Importance
0.6 0.5414
0.4 0.341
0.2004
0.2 0.1422 0.1249
0.0922
0.0587
0.0226 0.0176
0
No std. Layout Pos.of Many Prop.of Low Fatigue Mood
ingredient branches ingredient space
Causes
18
4 Improvement
4.1.1 Introduction
This DOE should find out about the influence of standardized patterns
and branches on the actual working or process time. The primary objective of
this design of experiment is to find the crucial factors that might change the
process time of a task.
DOE is known as a structured, organized method for determining the
relationship between factors that affect a process and the output of that
process. After the experiment we want to use the Response Surface
Methodology to find the optimum combination of factors that yields to a
minimum working time.
Our objective is to find out how much standardized actions and branches
contribute to the process time of a task (measured in seconds) and ultimately
find a fitted model to best predict the final working time
4.1.2 Methodology
19
7 Walk to center table
8 Put the item on the center table
9 Next cycle, until all books is moved to center table
In order to investigate the influence of the factors we picked from the
Pareto-chart analysis on the outcome of the DOE. The output of the DOE is
the time needed to complete all the tasks under certain working conditions.
The Factors considered in the 23 experiment is as shown in Table 1
Table 5-1 Factors of DOE
Factors Level
- +
Branch A No branch Has branch
Unexpected tasks C No 3
(Std.)
Description of factor A
“-“: the person can use all books in source 1 and then use books in source 2.
“+”: the person should use one book from 1 and then in the next cycle the person
should use one book from 2, and then continue
Description of factor B
"-": the person should pick one book and then one piece of paper in a cycle
"+": the person may either pick a book or paper first in each cycle, decided by
random variable generator
Description of factor C
"-": no interruptions
"+": when finish a cycle, the person may be interrupted by other things. After which
cycle is decided by random variable generator. The total number of interruptions in one
repeat (16 cycles) is 3
4.1.3 Results
20
time
Using data from Table 2, the analyzing of factorial design and factorial
plotting in MINITAB 15 are performed. Figure 5-2, 5-3 and 5-4 are the results
21
Figure 5-4 Interaction Plot for Process Time
Figure 5-3 shows the main effects and indicates that the sequence order
and the appearances of unexpected tasks have the main influence on the final
process time. This confirms our findings from the Pareto-Chart where we
identified those as critical factors that have the highest contribution towards a
long process time and therefore leads to high waiting time in a service
process.
Figure 5-2 and figure 5-4 underlines the high importance on focusing on
the two factors ‘unexpected task’ and ‘sequence’ which both are requirements
that stand for a standard process diagram where each action happens
according to a given and predefined sequence.
22
4.2 Simulation
The simulation is based on the process diagram version 2 and the results
from the questionnaire. Some information like the number of ingredients is on
the basis of the statistical result of the questionnaire and is defined as a
random value within a certain range. Each type of ingredients has a
probability to be selected. This probability will called selection probability. The
simulation developed shows the complete process of the IMI canteen.
The simulation provided data for another DOE. We picked the values
which are randomized as new factors that influence the total serving time. The
factors are:
Factor A: Capacity of the basket
“-“: all is set to 30
“+”: ingredients with high demand are set to 40, the others are set to 20
23
Factor B: Variance of Selection Probability
“-“: the variance of selecting different ingredients remains small
“+”: the variance of selecting different ingredients is high
24
Figure 5-8: Interaction Plot
The plots show that the factor position has the highest contribution
towards the process time. The interaction and strong correlation of the factors
should be taken into account since synchronized their changes all result in a
higher process time.
However, p-value is too low, which implies that the unidentified block
factors affecting service time are too many. Hence we turned to another
indicator: number of finished orders.
25
Figure 5-10: Main Effects Plot
We can see that all 3 factors have strong positive correlation with number
of finished orders.
26
5 Conclusion & Outlook
6-sigma was a useful method to identify the key factors of the service
process. It could have a great effect on improving the service time.
Using 6-sigma roadmap DMAIC, refectory in general can raise their
throughput and serve a higher number of customers than they do now which
means that they can greatly raise their effectiveness and efficiency.
The major conclusions we drew were:
1. Fewer branches in the process make lower service time
2. Standardization of the tasks, especially fixed task performing order
and fewer occurrences of unexpected tasks can give lower service time
3. The affection of position and proportion of ingredients is not significant
on average service time.
4. However, there is integrated optimization so that the total number of
finished orders in the given hours has a significant increase. In concrete, if
the most demand ingredients are put at front and give more resource like
capacity, total number of finished orders will increase. Moreover, the
increasing will become more significant as the demands for different
ingredients become more different.
It was not possible for us to match our defined goal. Though we think that
the reduction of time is possible, but we cannot predict the queue length and
therefore the waiting time since many factors are with the customer and the
variation is too high to promise a certain level of service speed.
Our report does not include a control stage. We thought that it is not
appropriate to use statistical control methods to see whether the service
process is working well or not. Since variation that comes from the customer
which has a great influence on the service time might lead to the conclusion
that the process time is too high, though all improvements were already
implemented.
Since the service quality is theoretically improved by 6-sigma more
customer requirements can be met, but not all. The service still has some
problems to deal with like the variety of customer group. The next step of
improvement would be to take the popular ingredients into account and make
re-arrangement of the ingredients according to their frequency of usage. By
this it is not guaranteed that every process will be accelerated but though the
average throughput-time will shortened and hence this will finally lead to a
27
smaller queuing time.
.
28
Appendix A: Questionnaire
The following questionnaire relates to the delay in time spent in serving food at
International Management Institute canteen. Please fill in your responses to the below
mentioned questions in the best of your knowledge.
3. How many vegetables generally can you select to eat at one time?
________________
5. What do you think is your waiting time while standing in a queue to take your
supper at IMI canteen? ________________
6 Mark your responses by ranking them in ascending order with 1-Strongly agree, 2-
Definitely agree 3- Agree 4- Partially agree 5-Disagree?
A. Waiting time in the canteen is due to the congested process layout of the
canteen.
B. Waiting time in the canteen is due to the position of ingredients kept on the
table.
C. Waiting time is due to the proportion of ingredients
D Waiting time in the canteen is due to the haphazard movement of people while
taking their meal.
29
7. What do you think should be the standby period for taking a meal after placing an
order?
A. Any time is convenient for me.
B. Less than 20 minutes.
C Just as I place an order it should be ready.
8. How long of the queue will make you give up?
A Never give up.
B. Longer than 3 windows
C Longer than 2 window
D Longer than 1 window
E Very short
Replication 1
Factors Result
A B C Person 1 Person 2 Person 3 Mean time
Perf. Seq. Time / s Perf. Seq. Time / s Perf. Seq. Time / s
+ + + 8 219.4 12 215.8 17 209.8 206.50
- + + 6 194.5 13 172.5 24 184.3 183.50
+ - + 4 178.5 15 173.4 21 178.2 187.23
- - + 3 191.7 16 181.8 18 185.2 186.23
+ + - 5 189.8 9 176.6 20 187.4 184.60
- + - 1 195.7 14 191.8 23 203.6 197.03
+ - - 2 174.6 11 178.6 22 180.3 179.13
- - - 7 185.4 10 168.4 19 175.2 179.37
Replication 2
Factors Result
A B C Person 1 Person 2 Person 3 Mean time
Perf. Seq. Time / s Perf. Seq. Time / s Perf. Seq. Time / s
+ + + 41 216.3 32 214.3 33 190.5 207.03
- + + 44 204.6 29 204.2 40 189.4 199.40
+ - + 48 191.3 30 186.2 36 194.4 190.63
- - + 46 193.3 27 186 35 177.5 185.60
+ + - 42 201.9 28 189.1 39 184.9 191.97
- + - 43 192.3 31 186.3 37 188.7 189.10
+ - - 47 186.4 25 181.2 38 179.6 182.40
- - - 45 184.6 26 171.9 34 163.8 173.43
30
Replication 3
Factors Result
A B C Person 1 Person 2 Person 3 Mean time
Perf. Seq. Time / s Perf. Seq. Time / s Perf. Seq. Time / s
+ + + 59 209.5 65 211.5 53 197.2 206.07
- + + 62 199.2 67 187.2 55 184.2 190.20
+ - + 64 182.2 68 196.7 54 179.7 186.20
- - + 60 186.5 69 179.4 52 171 178.97
+ + - 58 188.1 70 174.5 50 183 181.87
- + - 57 186.8 66 185.7 51 193.8 188.77
+ - - 61 168.6 72 171.8 49 176.3 172.23
- - - 63 172.7 71 184.5 56 167.9 175.03
31