Reducing company operating expense using lean sigma approach by improving water content in oily waste disposal

• Main Author: Nugroho, Kurniawan
• Format: Conference or Workshop Item
• Language: English
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: HC Economic History and Conditions
• Online Access: http://repo.uum.edu.my/15954/1/P40.pdf; http://repo.uum.edu.my/15954/; http://stmlportal.net/ictom04/TOC.html
• Institution: Universiti Utara Malaysia

This project aimed to address the increasing Operating Expense (OPEX) of an oil company due to disposing oily waste.Company spent about $ 5.6 million to dispose its oily waste as side product of its operations.The goal of this project was to create a sustainable process that reduced the OPEX caused by disposing the oily waste.By applying Lean Sigma approach, the project team identified the current situation that the disposing oily waste practice was not done in efficient. Approximately about 41.7% water that should be in free of charge was contained in the oily waste that company paid.This was caused by lack of operator’s knowledge, unavailable measurement device in the field as well as lack of Standard Operating Procedures. The project team also identified the optimal process to improve the water content.By the end of the project, project team had successfully improved the water content to 19.5% in average.