Platen rollers for thermal printers are formed from metal molds, but the platen roller taken from the mold is beset with problems, such as inadequate accuracy and flash, so further surface processing is necessary. A grinding process is used to reduce the surface to the required shape. This paper reports on the application of quality engineering to the grinding process. An L18 orthogonal array experiment was conducted with the specified volume as the input to the process and there moved volume as the output. Reproducibility of the gain of the S/N ratio was confirmed from the results.