Title: Eliminating end-of-line rejections - a quality filter mapping approach

Authors: P. Raghuram; Ashwin Srikanth; P. Rithan Mandesh

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Amrita School of Engineering, Coimbatore, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Amrita School of Engineering, Coimbatore, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Amrita School of Engineering, Coimbatore, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, India

Abstract: Growing production volumes and high-quality requirements are some of the main challenges faced by manufacturing industries today. End of line rejections and rework contribute towards increasing the component costs, which in turn affects the customer pricing or company profits. The workaround created due to rework increases the complexity of flow and contributes to the hidden factory. This paper elaborates a step-by-step approach using a case study to develop a quality filter mapping for an engine assembly line which eliminates end-of-line rejections and rework. A pareto analysis reveals the vital few defects that are occurring along the assembly line. The root causes of these defects are identified using a cause-and-effect diagram and are mapped along material flow in the assembling plant. The quality filter map can be used to integrate quality control into the process flow and thereby prevent the flow of defectives in assembly and manufacturing lines.

Keywords: quality filter mapping; defect mitigation; step-by-step approach; assembly line.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSOM.2024.136797

International Journal of Services and Operations Management, 2024 Vol.47 No.1, pp.123 - 140

Received: 02 Jul 2021
Accepted: 28 Sep 2021
Published online: 22 Feb 2024 *

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