A Pathway for Process Improvement Activities in a Production Environment: A Case Study in a Rework Department

• Published in: Business Process Management pp. 344 - 353
• Main Authors: Özkök, Onur, Pakdil, Fatma, Çamlıca, Fahri Buğra, Bektaş, Tolga, Kara, İmdat
• Format: Book Chapter Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin, Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2005; Springer
• Series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Code Group; Computer science; control theory; systems; Exact sciences and technology; Information systems. Data bases; Material Requirement Planning; Memory organisation. Data processing; Software; Spare Part; Storage Policy; Total Quality Management; Case study; Problem solving; Firm management; Integrated management; Process improvement; Firm
• ISBN: 3540282386; 9783540282389
• ISSN: 0302-9743; 1611-3349
• DOI: 10.1007/11538394_23

In this study, we describe our experience in process improvement in a study of one of the foremost manufacturing firms in Turkey. The firm is faced with a large increase in its inventory of returned products. To arrive at solutions to the problem and suggest improvements in the system under consideration, we offer a three-phase methodology which consists of identifying all the sub-problems that lead to the main problem and then solving those sub-problems. Although their solution involves the use of well-known techniques, the uniqueness of the approach lies in offering a systematic methodology that unifies these techniques from different disciplines in a sequential and integrated fashion.