Quality Improvement of Audit Processes Duration by the Implementation of Lean Six Sigma (LSS) in the Aviation Industry of UAE: A Case Study

Abstract

Continuous and sustainable quality improvement is a crucial driver for every industry. Most of the industries require deploying and sustaining continuous quality improvement through the latest tools and techniques. The aviation industry, in particular, requires more advanced techniques to practically integrate the quality approaches for saving costly, time, money, and eliminating waste processes. The most common method often to analyze the quality level of any process is auditing. Auditing plays a significant role in providing the current status of a process. This research focuses on minimizing the time spent on auditing, findings, and reporting through the implementation of Lean Six Sigma approaches. The study aims to identify the value-added and non-value added activities in the audit process to improve the cycle time of the audit process. Secondary data was collected through quality management system documentation of an aviation company for the past five years. The documents were analyzed for the efficiency of the audit process and reducing the audit time using Lean Six Sigma DMAIC methodology. DMAIC (define, measure, analyze, improve, and control) approach and lean principles were used to analyze the audit process. The current process had more than 20 steps, which was reduced to 15 steps through Lean Six Sigma approaches. The overall time of the audit was reduced from 48 hours to 36 hours. The organization was able to utilize the lean six sigma implementation knowledge for significant improvements that enabled them to save time, cost, and increase quality.