Content area
Full text
Abstract
Using the tools of quality in real-world production applications can reward a company with immense and readily quantifiable economic benefits. In the following paper a case is presented in which the tools of quality were applied to analyze an actual production problem in the textile industry. Using these tools it was possible to identify root causes of production problems down to the worker level, and to estimate the economic benefits of improving production operations as indicated by application of the tools. In this case, only the names were changed to protect the guilty.
1. Introduction
Wilmington Textile is one of the world's global leaders in the fabric industry. The Wilmington business base includes expensive fabrics for commercial and consumer applications. The company is headquartered in Wilmington, NC, and has several textile mills located throughout the U.S. and Canada. Wilmington employs approximately 50,000 people in these countries, but serves customers worldwide. Among Wilmington's numerous mills, is one located in Grayson, Kentucky. Production at the Grayson mill includes a wide variety of finished and semi-finished fine fabrics. Production quality at Grayson had always been above average, but during the past few months, the Grayson mill had begun to develop some problems in its production operations. Specifically, the Grayson Mill had begun to produce an excessive number of nonconforming Products (NCPs). Non-conforming products are those products that may have been over-produced, leftover from customer orders, or simply defective. NCP codes were defined by production management as follows:
NC0 - Quality hold NC1 - Quality reject
NC2 - Joblot produced against NCP joblot
NC4 - Non-salable trim fill
NC5 - Salvage product
NC6 - Straight wind product
NC9 - Cancelled order transferred to NC overrun
NC10 - Production overrun transferred to NC overrun
NC11 - Scheduled overrun transferred to NC overrun
NC12 - Scheduled trim fill transferred to NC overrun
NC13 - Manual transfer of inventory to NC overrun
NC14 - Cancelled order or stranded bolt transferred to NC overrun
For efficient operations at the Grayson Mill, the total inventory (finished, unfinished and NCP) should be no more than 7,800 bolts with no more than 10% as NCP. (Note: A bolt of fabric is 100 yards.) Essentially, each NCP involves one bolt of fabric. In 2013, Grayson...