Title: Statistical process control: the lessons to be learnt

Authors: B.G. Dale, P. Shaw

Addresses: Department of Management Sciences, UMIST, Manchester, UK. ' The Management Centre, Wigan College of Technology, Wigan, UK

Abstract: The authors, from their training and research activities, have identified a number of practicalities and pitfalls relating to the introduction and application of statistical process control (SPC) in the automotive supplier community. These include: senior management not taking their obligations for quality improvement seriously; insufficient thought being given to the role of the SPC facilitator; people who are not directly responsible for control of a process, collecting and plotting data on control charts; control charts being displayed away from the work area; an over-reliance being placed on SPC computerised packages; confusion over the type of control chart to use in a particular situation; a lack of action on the data collected and presented on control charts; and a lack of confidence to experiment with the use of SPC. This paper articulates these difficulties and speculates on the reasons for them.

Keywords: automotive management; quality improvement; statistical process control; SPC; control charts; variation; automobile industry; automotive suppliers.

DOI: 10.1504/IJVD.1988.061487

International Journal of Vehicle Design, 1988 Vol.9 No.3, pp.276 - 286

Published online: 26 May 2014 *

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