Blace Jacobus

IE-673 Midterm

4/3/16

Case 1) Lightbulb
Detection: As you can see there is a light out above my new bathroom light fixture.
These 5 bulbs were all brand new and when I turned it on for the first time one
failed to illuminate. Since 1 out of 5 failed to light it leads me to believe this was a
manufacture defect and not shipping & handling error.

Prevention: At the light bulb manufacture they might be doing spot checks on their
light bulbs and not a 100% inspection. To prevent quality mistakes like this,
increased inspection rates would allow more failures to be caught.

Case 2) Guitar Body

Detection: The image below is of my new guitar body. There is a thin crack growing
along the grain of the wood. I had just bought this guitar about two months ago and
cracking of the wood should not happen if the guitar is well maintained and stored.

Blace Jacobus

IE-673 Midterm

4/3/16

Prevention: I do not believe this crack was present at the purchases of the guitar
as I would have noticed it during my initial visual inspection. After researching
causes of cracking in guitars I found they are sensitive to heat fluxuations and
should be kept in a temperature and humidity controlled location. I now store the
guitars in a case away from the hot water baseboard.

Case 3) Extrusion Mark

Detection: We received a sample of raw material for a new project at work last
week but when we ran it through surface finishing operations we found that there
was a deep scratch in the material.

Scratc
h

Prevention: The vender was contacted regarding this scratch and responded that it
was intently put in the material as an identifier of where it came from. They will be
removing this mark for us on all future shipments. This is an example of good
quality control. If we had not caught this during manufacturing then a product with
poor manufacturing quality would have been shipped to the customer.

Blace Jacobus

IE-673 Midterm

4/3/16

Case 4) Scratched Adjuster Knob

Detection: A new POLARIS-K1S4 was taken out of our finished inventory for use in
a lab experiment. Upon removal of the product it was noticed that one of the
adjuster screws had a large scratch in it. This would not affect the function of the
part but cosmetic appearance is a large part of a customers decision to buy a
product. No one would want to buy an ugly car even if it preforms as well as a good
looking car

Prevention:
Our manufacturing assembly department as well as manufacturing was notified of
this defect. It turns out this piece was the first one cut from a new piece of raw
material. The ends of the raw material are not cut to a nice finish and have large
devotion in size causing the cutting machine to miss this area leaving it with an
unfinished look. Going forward all first cut pieces will be inspected for finish quality.
This is an example where quality control did not catch the defect and it could have
been sent off to the customer but luckily it was pulled for internal use and we have
learned from our mistakes.

Blace Jacobus

IE-673 Midterm

4/3/16

Case 5) Cracked Sapphire Seats

Detection: A customer had complained about poor performance of their angular
adjustment when using the adjuster similar to the one shown in case 4. The adjuster
threads into a plate the very fine causes pitch or yaw adjustment. We had
requested the customer send it back so we could review it and found that the
sapphire contact where the adjuster contacts was cracked as shown in the picture
below.

Prevention: In the left image you can see that the sapphire seats are not well
aligned. This will cause the adjuster ball to contact the side of the seat where it is
very weak and would cause chipping. Our assembly team has been made aware of
this issue and will take more care when gluing the seat. Our inspection team has
also been made aware of this issue and will be inspecting this step during the
assembly step.

Blace Jacobus

IE-673 Midterm

4/3/16

Case 6) Candle on table edge

Detection: A human error was leaving a candle on the edge of my living room
table. Unfortunately I did not catch it in time but my dogs tail knocked it off the
edge and the image below is the result of this this error

Prevention: This accident could have been easily avoided if the candle was not left
near the edge of a table where it can easily be knocked over. Instead it should have
been placed in the center of the table or in a location out of the way so it could not
be accidently hit.

Blace Jacobus

IE-673 Midterm

4/3/16

Case 7)
Detection: After setting up my entertainment center it was noticed that the wires
were a very unorganized and next to the hot water base board. This could be the
cause for a house fire.

Prevention: To prevent an undesirable situation such as a house fire. The wires

were organized and moved away from the heating system. This now looks a lot
better but is also more efficient when working on the stereo as well as safer.
Case 8) Paper Towels
Detection: Upon looking for human errors around the house I noticed that our
paper towel holder was left dangerously close to the stove.

Prevention: Keeping paper products away from oven seems like a no brainer. I
have moved the paper towels away and informed my roommates that this is not
acceptable location. This is an easy and foolish way to start a fire in the kitchen
where there are many flammable objects so extra care should be taken especially in
this room.

Blace Jacobus

IE-673 Midterm

4/3/16

Case 9) Deck Umbrella

Detection: My deck umbrella is fastened to the deck and always closed unless it is
in use for making the deck a little shady when we have guests over. During stormy
weather even though closed the umbrella can still catch wind and act like a sail and
damage the umbrella or worse the deck.

Prevention: The image above is of our new umbrella. During a storm it was ripped
off the deck and ended up in our neighbors yard. To prevent this from happening
again we take the umbrella off the deck and in the shed.
Case 10) Kitchen Chair
Detection: Our kitchen chair supports are beginning to break and some are
completely breaking. This has been a source of much laughter but also frustrating.
This issue was not detected before purchasing the dining set. The low build quality
was only noticed after about 1 month of use.

Prevention: After about two of the chairs had broken we took steps to prevent
others from breaking by adding additional glue and screws to the joints that were
breaking. This issue could have been caught before buying the set by thoroughly
inspecting the furniture and knowing that the joints are typically a failure point.

Blace Jacobus

IE-673 Midterm

4/3/16

Case 11) TV Power Supply

Detection: A storm had taken out our power a few months ago but once it returned
my TV would not turn on. This lead me to believe that power supply board went bad
due to the power surge. I used my DC Volt meter to trace the problem back to one
of the capacitors.

Prevention: This is a human error because I did not have my TV plugged into a
surge protector. I have lost electronics in the past due to the same issue so I should
have known better. This would have saved the headache of replacing the power
board and almost losing my TV. After the TV was fixed I ordered a bunch of surge
protectors and now almost everything I own uses one.
Case 12) Game Controller
Detection: The other night my roommates and I were playing video games. During
the night someone had placed the controller next to their drink. Surely after place it
down it was knocked over and spilled all over the controller compliantly breaking it.

Prevention: If more care was taken with placing the controller out of harms way
the spilt drink would not have come in contact with the controller. Also if more care
were taken around the drink it would not have spilt. Very simple things like paying
attention could have prevented this human error.

Blace Jacobus

IE-673 Midterm

4/3/16