Improving Yarn Quality in Ethiopia’s Textile Industry through Lean Six Sigma: A Case Study KT Industry

Abstract

Abdella Simegnaw Ahmmed, Adane Dagnaw Gudayu, Tekalgn Mamay, Eeyob Minbale and Yimer Hussine Hassen

Today, the textile industry faces high market demand for quality products at low costs, yet many yarn manufacturing sectors in Ethiopia struggle with production and quality issues, including inefficiency, subpar raw materials, inadequate management, poor resource use, and limited process capability. These factors impede yarn quality, which is critical for the success of the textile sector and directly impacts customer satisfaction. The spinning section is crucial in converting raw materials into yarn, influenced by machine settings, fiber characteristics, and operator skills. Poor quality yarn can lead to defects, waste, and inefficiencies. To combat these challenges, the Lean Six Sigma (LSS) methodology has been adopted as a means of enhancing quality through integrating lean principles with Six Sigma, thereby improving production capacity and cost-effectiveness in the yarn manufacturing process. A defect rate of 16,266 out of one million productions, indicating that the yarn manufacturing process is failing to meet specified criteria and lags behind other subprocesses. To address this, corrective measures based on Lean Six Sigma were implemented in the spinning section. From the result it can be shown that the yield, performances, DPMO, and sigma value are increased from 89.6% to 97.45%, 63.26% to 87.15%, 14660% to 2392.47%, and 2.13 to 2.86, respectively. In addition, the quality characteristics of manufactured 21 Ne cotton yarn are increased by overall performances of 80.37%. Furthermore, the approach reduces lead time by 36.05% and increases sigma level by 21.03%.

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