Industrial Engineering & Management

The increasing economic growth in Bangladesh encourages the growth of Leather sector. This condition results in an intense competition among the leather products industries particularly footwear industries which encourages companies to produce quality products in order to meet customers’ satisfaction. One of the methods to control the quality is by using Six Sigma (SS). SS is a method of improving the quality towards the target of 3.4 defects per million opportunities for each production of goods and services. SS is divided into two methods, namely DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve, and Control) and DMADV (Define, Measure, Analyse, Design, and Verify). It can be implemented not only for big companies but also for SMEs. This study was conducted to determine the application of quality control aspect of SS in leading export oriented footwear industry in Bangladesh using DMAIC method. By using this tool, it can be seen that the sigma value in the different production line like court shoe and oxford shoe production line are 6324 and 6300 with the possibility of error products contained are 32938 and 32814 per million opportunities respectively. In the application of SS in this study, there are various causes of defective products, namely toe lasting problems, inefficient ironing, insufficient chilling, etc.

The purpose of this study is to develop an integrated continuous improvement model so as to improving the global competitiveness of basic metal industries. The study concerned on the Ethiopian basic metal-manufacturing firms, with a special emphasis on the medium and large manufacturing industries. However, basic metal industries occupy a prominent position in the development agenda of many developing countries like Ethiopia. Hence, this study investigated the role of continuous improvement for global competition of basic metal industries, so as to tackle global competition problems on the firms. From numerous contentious improvements, we have to emphasis integrated JIT and TQM implementation on basic metal industries to improve competitive performance. The survey study is conduct through field observation, literature review of research articles, books, magazines, manuals, company report and electronic-sources which are analysis. A case study also conducted at Kaliti Metal Products Factory. The survey data is analyzed using descriptive analysis, SPCT (fishbone diagram). At literature level, the global competitiveness of Ethiopian economy was assessed and the current trends of continuous improvement tools implementation for global competitiveness of basic metal industries was analyzed. Poor supply chain system, manpower, raw material problems, energy fluctuation, outdated technology, manufacturing systems, financial and logistics problems are identified as the obstacles and influence the Ethiopian basic metal industry performance and global competitiveness. Based on the investigations an integrated continuous improving models are developed so as to improve the performance and global competitiveness of basic metal industries.

Biotechnology is a frontier area in science and technology having significant commercial applications in healthcare, agriculture, Textile, process industry and service sectors all over the world. Aloe Vera is in an advantageous plant to harness the potential of biotechnology application in textile pretreatment and coloration due to its property of naturally occurring coloration. Availability and abundance, catalyst chemicals such as amylase and lipase and Sodium ion, the present investigation aims at using aloe gel as bio polymer in pretreatment and coloration of cotton textiles.