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Improving wooden parts' quality by adopting DMAIC procedure
Author(s) -
Li MingHsien Caleb,
AlRefaie Abbas
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
quality and reliability engineering international
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.913
H-Index - 62
eISSN - 1099-1638
pISSN - 0748-8017
DOI - 10.1002/qre.905
Subject(s) - dmaic , six sigma , quality (philosophy) , manufacturing engineering , reliability engineering , measure (data warehouse) , repeatability , process (computing) , engineering , quality management , computer science , operations management , data mining , mathematics , statistics , management system , philosophy , epistemology , lean manufacturing , operating system
This paper utilizes the six‐sigma define‐measure‐analyze‐improve‐control (DMAIC) procedure to improve quality through enhancing the measurement system capability (MSC) of a wood industry. In the first stage, the major reported defects at the customer site are identified, and then the performance of the measurement system is evaluated by conducting a gage repeatability and reproducibility (GR&R) experiment on a drilling process, i.e. the outputs of a drilling machine. The obtained results show that the measurement system is inadequate and results in wrong classification of the produced wooden parts. Thus, to improve MSC, corrective actions, including operators' training, proper selection of measuring instruments, and improved measuring methods, were implemented. To determine the achieved improvement in MSC, a second GR&R study was carried out under the same conditions. In conclusion, adopting the DMAIC procedure including GR&R study turns out to be an effective method in improving the quality system involving measurements. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.