Creating a Competitive Advantage by Applying Six Sigma Strategy Through Strategic Management Case Study of the Hard Disk Drive Assembly Manufacturing

Abstract

          Hard Disk Drive (HDD) industry has been rapidly growing with intense competition of the products such as its storage capacity, speed, and unit cost. The research was conducted to investigate the quality management issue of a company in the HDD industry with an objective to increase the percentage of Overall Yield by applying Six Sigma Strategy through Strategic Management. The study was started with an examination of current problems that effected to business, then evaluated competitive advantage, external environment and internal environment, analyzed alternative strategies, and implemented Six Sigma. Six Sigma composed of 5 steps or DMAIC as follows; 1) Define the problem, by selecting 5 highest regarding to the production volume and defective items and calculated the value of loss per month, compared with the targets and action plan. 2) Measure, by evaluating the measurement system of those 5 selected products. 3) Analysis, analyzed the cause regarding to 3G (Gemba, Gembutsu, Genjitsu), and selected Key Process Input Variable (KPIV), and created a hypothesis to identifies main variable. 4) Improve, applied Design of Experiments (DOE) to select the appropriate value of each variable 5) Control, Controlled the variables according to the goals and create a new standard. All 5 main steps are the provided to quality improvement team.

          The result found that the percentage of Overall Yield was increased from 98.48% to 98.77% or 1}612}358 bath per month (19}348}296 bath per year). Another success factor was personal can analyze and make decisions under Six Sigma concept which has enabled the company to improve the quality of products and processes that can create competitive advantage in the future.