Application of Six Sigma DMAIC methodology in a Merchandise Receiving Process at Burlington Store

Abstract

With the intent of decreasing the cycle time of the merchandise process receiving, the unloading and scanning step and the sorting step were identified as a labor cost opportunity. Through 3 kaizen events done across site, it was determined a requirement of 15% total cycle time reduction for receiving merchandise process. DMAIC methodology and Lean manufacturing principles was used to develop this project and successfully decreased the receiving process cycle time. With the reassignment of employee’s positions in the different steps and the identification of the work areas, the improvement on the process was significantly noted. This project achieved an improvement of 75.27 minutes per pallet down to 52.46 minutes per pallet, which represents a 30.30% decrease of cycle time on this process, which at the same time, represent a reduction of approximately $10,927.42 on payroll cost for the company. Key Terms ⎯ DMAIC, Lean manufacturing, Retail store, Receiving process.