LEAN SIX SIGMA: IMPLEMENTATION OF IMPROVEMENTS TO THE INDUSTRIAL COST MANAGEMENT

In practice, with the aim of achieving competitiveness, the industrial sector has the primary function of looking for ways to increase productive performance, improve the quality of products and processes, and reduce waste and production costs. An alternative to these strategies is the deployment of improvement projects, following the DMAIC structure of the Six Sigma approach. This study aimed to present the results of Lean Six Sigma implementation oriented to cost management. A case study was carried out in an agro-industrial cooperative, specifically, in the grain receipts department. The tools applied in the case study were: Requirements Tree; Charts Pareto and Stratification; Cause and Effect Diagram; Failure Mode and Effect Analysis; Statistical Process Control, and; Control Array, respectively. These tools are widely used in quality management and continuous improvement of industrial processes, mainly. As result, it was possible to apply all the tools proposed by the methodology and achieve a satisfactory result of cost improvements. The improvements obtained in the department's cost management system, as well as the increase in the capacity of the process, were both significant.