2002 Volume 10 Issue 6 Pages 97-104
Quality Engineering known as Taguchi methods is a series of knowledge/methodology widely applied all over the world, especially in the U.S. This report describes another application of "On-line Quality Engineering". For the application of quality control to machining lines, we have extended the activities applied to "a transmission case machining line," which was reported last year, to the whole production line. The results of activities showed that by the adjustment of sampling interval based on process stability and the adjustment of cutting tool/equipment, the stability of product quality was drastically improved, including the reduction of inspection work load and the number of defective products. For the application to the production engineering system,the study of cycle time was carried out. We pursued the essence of the loss function from the standpoint of production engineering. From the actual data, it was found that there is linear relationship between cycle time and the loss. It was also verified that the slope of linear relationship varies depending on the component parts and different production lines. Based on the above results, a new guideline was set for cycle time setting, which was traditionally determined by experience or from fragmentary evaluations. There will be a potential of drastic reduction in the losses.
