Improving Depot Repair Lead Time Using Lean Six Sigma

Lean Six Sigma is a well-known methodology used by manufacturing industries to improve their products and processes, but it is not a methodology that has had much recognition in service-oriented industries. Both industries have the shared goal of providing value to their customers as a mechanism for business competitiveness. One important service industry is Maintenance and Repair, which many private companies are relying on as another opportunity for growth, and many public organizations, such as the Department of Defense, have relied on to sustain highly complex and expensive systems over a longer life cycle than originally planned for. The maintenance and repair service industries are beginning to understand the power that Lean Six Sigma can have in improving their services, yet the current body of knowledge is sparse in comparison to the manufacturing industry. The first objective of this Praxis is to understand what are the current Lean Six Sigma best practices for the Service Industry and then create a Lean Six Sigma Repair model based on those best practices. The second objective is to apply this Lean Six Sigma Repair model to a non-aviation system that requires a core capability for depot-level repairs in order to support the idea that the DoD can benefit from an enterprise-wide Lean Six Sigma Repair model based on service industry best practices. The proposed Lean Six Sigma Repair model is specifically applied to a government depot repair facility experiencing long lead times, work order backlogs, and suboptimal spare inventory levels. This Praxis will help logistics engineering managers resolve problems with the depot-level repair of DoD systems in the Operations & Support Life Cycle Phase. 

Author

• Richmond, Ann

Language

• en

Keyword

• Maintenance
• Repair
• Lean
• Six Sigma
• Logistics
• Service Industry

Date created

• 2023

Type of Work

• Dissertation

License

• All rights reserved

Rights statement

• In Copyright

GW Unit

• Engineering Management

Degree

• D.Engr.

Advisor

• Blackburn, Timothy

Committee Member(s)

• Blackburn, Timothy
• Blackford, Joseph P.
• Etemadi, Amir

Persistent URL

•  https://scholarspace.library.gwu.edu/etd/9306t005v