Design for Lean Six Sigma (DFLSS): Philosophy, Tools, Potential and Deployment Challenges in Automotive Product Development

Lean Six Sigma is an approach that is gaining momentum both in manufacturing and service industries. Design for Lean Six Sigma (DFLSS) is an outgrowth of the DFSS and Lean Six Sigma approaches. The essence of DFLSS is to ensure design quality and predictability during the early design phases and the approach employs a structured integrated product development methodology and a comprehensive set of robust tools to drive product quality, innovation, faster time to market, and lower product costs. When it comes to automotive Product Development, applying lean principles and DFSS together becomes more of a challenge within the existing PD system. While the benefits of DFLSS present an attractive proposition in a fiercely competitive market it brings its own challenges as to how to deploy it for maximum benefits. This paper examines the challenges, potential and opportunities for DFLSS in the automotive industry and presents a vision for integrating it in to the Product Development System.

The paper also takes a deeper look at the differences and commonalities between DFSS and DFLSS and what potential DFLSS holds for the automotive industry. Additionally, the paper would examine other variants of DFSS like DFSS Kaizen to understand common underpinnings. The authors present a methodology that would address the changes that are required in the existing PD system and DFSS deployment practices to fully derive the benefits of DFLSS.