You are hired as a Black Belt consultant in a Medical Facility, your first customer is the Radiology Department and they want to implement a six-sigma project for the replacement of conventional radiologic film. Your first task is to conduct benchmarking of work done in the field. You will read the article listed below and will present a DMAIC structure/framework with your benchmark evaluation, using the data available from the article and your literature review.

· As part of your benchmarking assignment you should perform the following tasks:

a. Read the article (POSTED IN BLACKBOARD):

i. Kang, J.O., Kim, M.H., Hong, S.E., Jung, J.H., Song, M.J. The Application of the Six Sigma Program for the Quality Management of the PACS.November 2005, AJR: 185: 1361 – 1365.

b. Conduct a library literature research on PACS (use books, journals, adequate sources as required). This will assure that you have a comprehensive understanding about the topic. List your literature review and informational sources on the Bibliography section of the report. Read the Improve & Control lecture slides posted.

c. After reading the article, improve and control lectures and conducting your literature review, present a benchmark report including the following sections (i.e., organize the article work in these phases):

i. Define

ii. Measure

iii. Analyze

iv. Improve

v. Control

vi. Bibliography

· Use the data from the article to propose and define each of the sections in the DMAIC methodology. Include your discussion on each section and feel free to be creative by using the data presented in the article.

o Recommendations/Hints of information to include in the DMAIC section discussions and data to be presented in your benchmarking report (Don’t be limited by the list below, these are just hints!):

· Proposed Project Charter

· SIPOC Diagrams, CTC Diagrams

· Cause and Effect Diagrams, List Factors and Responses

· What are your factors and responses in the study, elaborate on discussion.

· Pareto of factors with respect to defects per units (DPO), please use bar chart in Excel to represent this.

· Conduct a baseline evaluation for each factor with respect to sigma levels.

· Graphically show the relationship between the resource requirements of each element before and after the 6 Sigma program.

· How many months were used in control stage and what was the measurable improvement?

· Study conclusions and summary of improvement results.