Defect Preventive Quality Control in Manufacturing

S.M.Wu
S. J. Hu

Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics, University of Michigan. Ann Arbor, MI
48109, U. S. A.

Abstract: Quality control techniques are reviewed, including inspection oriented QC,
statistical process control, and design oriented QC. Statistical methods and engineering
technologies for next generation quality control methodology - real-time defect prevention
during manufacturing - are presented. including (1) real-time sensing to allow the QC
system to monitor a process, (2) real-time analysis of process status. and (3) real-time
corrective action.

Keywords: statistical process control/defect prevention / time series analysis / forecasting

control/ variation reduction / precision machining / automobile assembly

1 Quality Assurance Technique Review

Historically, quality assurance has progressed through three development stages, moving
from downstream to upstream of the entire manufacturing processes. These three stages are:
inspection oriented quality assurance, statistical process control (SPC), and design oriented
quality assurance. These methods successfully address the problem of the high cost of data
collection and the requirement for human intervention to identify and solve problems. Today,
these methods are state-of-the-art techniques and are still being used in industries.

1.1 Inspection Oriented Quality Assurance

QUality assurance started with inspection. Inspection was required for assembly when people
started producing interchangeable parts. However, it would be too expensive to inspect every
part in mass production. Moreover, if the inspection was destructive, there would be nothing
left after inspecting every part. Inspection could also be very tedious for the inspectors during

E. J. Haug (ed.), Concurrent Engineering: Tools and Technologies for Mechanical System Design
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mass production. Therefore, sampling plans were introduced and popularized during World
War Two.
A number of problems exist for inspection oriented QA:
(1) Quality cannot be improved through inspection. When defects are found, the only action
taken is that of adjusting, reworking, or scrapping the defective parts. In any event,
productivity and costs suffer. As pointed out by Ishikawa [1], "the basic notion behind
control is the prevention of reoccurrence of errors." Merely finding problems in the
manufactured products does not improve product qUality.
(2) The concept of Acceptable Quality Level (AQL) in sampling plans is not applicable when
the quality level approaches 'zero defects'. For example, if the quality level is 5 parts per
million defective, the sampling results will possibly always be zero for a sample size of
100 or 200.
(3) Information from the traditional inspection division to the manufacturing division takes
too much time. It is not easy for the manufacturing division to use this information to
prevent errors.
Since inspection oriented quality assurance techniques are not enough to improve product
quality, other quality assurance techniques are needed.

1.2 Statistical Process Control (SPC)

Statistical Process Control (SPC) based on sampling was introduced by Shewhart from the
Bell Lab in the 1920s to reduce the defective rate and balance the control costs. Most of the
philosophy behind the use of control charts was laid out in a book published in 1931,
Economical Control of Quality of Manufactured Products [2]. The idea is to plot the data in
some manner as soon as it becomes available and to observe trends and changes. A typical
Shewhart control chart is shown in Figure 1 with both the Upper Control Limit (UCL) and
the Lower Control Limit (LCL). Usually a sample of n units is taken periodically, and both
the sample mean and sample range are plotted, i.e., j{ and R charts. The idea behind the chart
is that when the process is in control, the sample mean should be independently and normally
distributed about the target, and the variance should be constant.
In order to obtain sufficiently accurate control limits for the j{ and R charts, a mther large
number of subgroups must be taken. According to Grant and Leavenworth [3], a common
rule of thumb for j{ and R charts is that at least 25 subgroups should be taken before
calculating control limits. A subgroup of 5 is common in industry. This means that a
minimum of 125 parts are 'needed to establish the control limits.