Lean Six Sigma Application in Aircraft Assembly - MS Thesis

Wichita State University Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering Course

Lean Six-Sigma at Lockheed Martin 

Lockheed Martin is involved in the production of aeronautical and space systems.  The company put lean six-sigma into practice  in the year 1998 under the name “LM21 Best Practices”. As a top-down
approach, the program started with the training of top management and went down in
the organizational structure.  People holding a position of director or above were trained next. The value stream mapping provided information about whether customer expectations are met, presence of any gaps in meeting customer requirements and availability of possible solutions to bridge the gaps. The entire organization was involved in all the process improvement projects. Improvement
methods were a combination of tools from both Lean and Six-Sigma. They worked with critical suppliers to integrate Lean and SS into their plants also.  Lean Six-Sigma gave rise to about 5000 projects and resulted in close to $4 billion of reduction in cost  in four years.

Steinbrunner, D. (2005). The happy marriage of push and pull. Industrial Management, 47, 27-30.

Lewis Fischer, the Division Executive of National Enterprise Operation (NEO) encouraged the implementation Lean Six-Sigma ideology at NEO before the J P Morgan, NEO merger

2003

https://soar.wichita.edu/handle/10057/1167

Engineering knowledge and team approach were found to be essential. Without engineering knowledge the actual cause of the defect may be misinterpreted or missed. Team members from other departments help in identifying the upstream causes of defects and also its downstream effects.


Updated on 13 April 2020,  4 June 2019, 3 March 2012