Adopting Lean and TQM principles for the continuous improvement of the operations in the Doruk, Candy Hoover Group's Turkish factory

The recent economic crisis, the incremental uncertainty of the market demand and the end users' wider requests have led many companies to look for new ways to improve their own efficiency. The Lean approach provides a competitive edge and the implementation of this philosophy over the past decade has transformed the organizational model of many western companies by guaranteeing their success in the market. Lean Manufacturing arose from the Toyota Production System. The variants of Lean Manufacturing, such as TQM, were originally founded in the Japanese automotive industry, but their evolution was mostly carried out in the West. Total Quality Management and Lean Manufacturing, in fact, have much in common. Based on Lean strategies, Total Quality Management, similar to numerous improvement approaches, can be a tool to support and create synergy for inducing a more competitive market among companies. The purpose of this thesis is to show that, by implementing many continuous improvement projects which will cover many different facility’s areas, from the raw materials warehouse to the final assembly lines, it is easy and immediate to obtain processes and layout improvements. Moreover, the synergy created by combining Lean and TQM principles will enable to reach better economic results compared to the expectations. It will be made possible by the involvement of different departments in these high-commitment projects. During our six-month internships at Candy Hoover Group, the “Doruk” factory's internal operations and physical layout have been revolutionized. The main problems have been critically analyzed and, starting from the results obtained by a previous pilot project, many others continuous improvement projects have been implemented. The return on investment's calculation has showed monetary savings within the first year of implementation. For this reason, further studies are already scheduled in order to integrate the actions already implemented and to further increase the saving and the overall system efficiency and effectiveness.