2014 Volume 22 Issue 1 Pages 49-55
Avariety of components are handled in assembly processes performed on production lines, and many of those processes include a number of steps, each requiring quality assurance. Many inspections are therefore carried out, including inspections of semifinished products during the assembly process, inspection of finished products, and pre-shipment inspections. If even a small number of defective products are being passed to the next step or to the customer, production continues but an additional inspection is added to a step in which the defect can be reliably detected. As more and more inspections are added, they tend to overlap: multiple inspections are performed to detect the same type of defect. To reduce such unnecessary overlap, the present study proposes a method of reducing inspection costs and remedy costs by applying the inspection design techniques of online quality engineering not just to individual inspection steps but to the entire production line, comparing repeated inspection losses, noting what is being inspected, and making the inspection processes more efficient through thorough analysis, down to defect type.
