Achieving quality improvement in the mask manufacturing industry by using six sigma technique

Achieving Quality Improvement in the Mask Manufacturing Industry by Using Six Sigma Technique Submitted to: Science and Engineering Faculty School of Chemistry, Physics and Mechanical Engineering Queensland University of Technology Submitted by: Wei-Fen Chiu Research student Queensland University of Technology 4th April 2012 Acknowledgements Time flies, and the life of researching seems to be a challengeable but impressive journey I had a great time within the period of time since I have not only absorbed and comprehended more in the particular area of knowledge but made friends with some wonderful people who helped and supported me to accomplish my thesis First of all, I would like to offer my gratitude to my three supervisors Associate Professor YuanTong Gu, Dr Azharul Karim and Professor Lin Ma Thank you for supporting and believing in me from beginning to end with your passion and dedication I also wish to thank you for always encouraging me to express my ideas into my thesis with constructive feedback and positive praise I am delighted with having a good relationship with these two supervisors They are not only my supervisors but also my good friends inasmuch as they let me have absolute liberty during the time and we would chat about everything like friends Secondly, I would like to acknowledge my lovely parents, Shaw-Kou Chiu and PaoChao Yu, and my three sisters, who are Wei-Yi Chiu, Wei-Hsuan Chiu, and Wei-Chih Chiu I appreciate them supporting and encouraging me spiritually and practically with their constant love and wisdom To satisfy my material requirements, Dad has been working very hard overseas, and thereby, Mom has been flying laboriously between two countries every two months in order to take care of us physically and psychologically Thank you for my three beautiful sisters who make my research life interesting and happy with their smiles and thoughtfulness Thirdly, I would like to thank my friends in the research office Thank you for providing considerable and useful information and generous friendships It is my fortune to have met all my excellent researching friends Finally, thank you Queensland University of Technology for providing a marvellous researching environment and also the staff at the Research Support Office for always helping me when I needed it I Abstract The Six Sigma technique is one of the quality management strategies and is utilised for improving the quality and productivity in the manufacturing process It is inspired by the two major project methodologies of D P Do Check A PDCA C which consists of DMAIC and DMADV Those two methodologies are comprised of five phases The DMAIC project methodology will be comprehensively used in this research In brief, DMAIC is utilised for improving the existing manufacturing process and it involves the phases Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve, and Control Mask industry has become a significant industry outbreak of some serious diseases such as the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), bird flu, influenza, swine flu and hay fever Protecting the respiratory system, then, has become the fundamental requirement for preventing respiratory deceases Mask is the most appropriate and protective product inasmuch as it is effective in protecting the respiratory tract and resisting the virus infection through air In order thousands of mask products are designed in the market Moreover, masks are also widely used in industries including medical industries, semi-conductor industries, food industries, traditional manufacturing, and metal industries Notwithstanding the quality of masks have become the prioritisations since they are used to prevent dangerous diseases and safeguard people, the quality improvement technique are of very high significance in mask industry The purpose of this research project is firstly to investigate the current quality control practices in a mask industry, then, to explore the feasibility of using Six Sigma technique in that industry, and finally, to implement the Six Sigma technique in the case company to develop and evaluate the product quality process This research mainly investigates the quality problems of musk industry and effectiveness of six sigma technique in musk industry with the United Excel Enterprise Corporation (UEE) Company as a case company The DMAIC project methodology in the Six Sigma technique is adopted and developed in this research This research makes significant contribution to knowledge The main results contribute to the discovering the root causes of quality problems in a mask industry Secondly, the company was able to increase not only acceptance rate but quality level by utilising the Six Sigma technique Hence, utilising the Six Sigma technique could increase the production capacity of the company Third, the Six Sigma technique is necessary to be extensively modified to improve the quality control in the mask industry The impact of the Six Sigma technique on the overall performance in the business organisation should be further explored in future research II Certification of Thesis The work contained in this thesis has not been previously submitted for a degree or diploma at any other higher education institution To the best of my knowledge and belief, this thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made Wei-Fen Chiu 4th April 2012 III PREFACE During the course of this project, one journal paper has been published and another journal paper is being submitted for publication They are listed here for reference JOURNAL PUBLICATIONS WeiFen Chiu, YuanTong Gu, M.A.Karim and Lin MA, A modified quality control method for manufacturing process in mask industry, Advanced Materials Research Vols 139-141 (2010) pp 1843-1846 (ERA ranking B) JOURNAL PAPER UNDER PREPERATION WeiFen Chiu, YuanTong Gu, M.A.Karim and Lin MA, Improving Quality Control methodology in the Mask Industry by implementing the Six Sigma Technique, Advanced Materials Research (ERA ranking B) WeiFen Chiu, YuanTong Gu, M.A.Karim and Lin MA, The Enhanced Quality Control for Six Sigma Technique in Mask Industry, publish with InTech in the book project under the working title "Manufacturing System" IV Contents Page Number THESIS TITLE IX PROJECT SUPERVISORS IX CHAPTER INTRODUCTION - 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 RESEARCH FRAMEWORK AND BACKGROUND - PROBLEM STATEMENT, RESEARCH QUESTION AND RESEARCH OBJECTIVE - RESEARCH METHOD - OUTLINE OF THIS THESIS - - CHAPTER LITERATURE REVIEW - 2.1 THE HISTORY OF THE SIX SIGMA TECHNIQUE - 2.1.1 The Six Sigma technique in practise - 2.2 THE QUALITY MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS - 12 2.2.1 Total Quality Management (TQM) - 12 2.2.2 The difference between the Six Sigma technique and the Total Quality Management (TQM) - 13 2.2.3 Basics for Six Sigma technique - 15 2.2.4 The Six Sigma technique principles - 17 2.3 THE SIX SIGMA TECHNIQUE METHODS - 18 2.3.1 The DMAIC method for the Six Sigma technique - 18 2.3.2 The DMADV method for the Six Sigma technique - 19 2.3.3 The Comparison between two methods - 20 2.4 IMPLEMENTATION ROLES FOR THE SIX SIGMA TECHNIQUE - 21 2.5 USEFUL TOOLS AND METHODOLOGIES FOR THE SIX SIGMA TECHNIQUE - 24 2.5.1 Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) - 24 2.5.2 Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) - 25 2.5.3 Flow Chart - 26 2.5.4 Histogram - 27 2.5.5 Pareto Diagrams - 28 2.5.6 Cause and Effect Diagrams - 29 2.5.7 Control Chart - 30 2.6 METHODS FOR OBTAINING THE DATA - 31 2.7 THE SIX SIGMA TECHNIQUE IN MASK INDUSTRY - 34 2.8 CONCLUSION - 35 CHAPTER QUALITY PROBLEMS IN THE MASK INDUSTRY A CASE STUDY - 36 3.1 INTRODUCTION - 36 3.2 COMPANY BACKGROUND - 36 3.2.1 Product Background - 37 3.3 PRODUCTION PROCESS IN CASE ORGANISATION - 39 3.4 QUALITY CONTROL IN UEE - 50 3.4.1 Quality control issues - 50 V CHAPTER ROOT CAUSES OF QUALITY PROBLEMS IN CASE ORGANISATION - 54 4.1 INTRODUCTION - 54 4.2 SURVEY OF UEE MANAGEMENT AND EMPLOYEES - 56 4.3 USE OF SIX SIGMA TOOLS TO IDENTIFY CAUSES OF QUALITY PROBLEMS - 58 4.3.1 Cause and effect diagram - 59 4.3.2 Pareto chart - 61 4.4 PRODUCTION DATA ANALYSIS - 63 4.5 CONCLUSION - 73 CHAPTER IMPROVING QUALITY USING THE SIX SIGMA TECHNIQUE - 74 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 EMPIRICAL FINDINGS - 74 STEP OF IMPLEMENTATION THE SIX SIGMA TECHNIQUE - 76 THE SIX SIGMA TEAM IN THE UNITED EXCEL ENTERPRISE (UEE) CORPORATION - 78 RESULTS OF CASE IMPROVEMENT - 80 SUMMARY - 89 - CHAPTER CONCLUSION - 90 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 SUMMARY OF THE RESEARCH - 90 CONCLUSIONS ABOUT RESEARCH QUESTIONS - 93 CONCLUSIONS REGARDING THE RESEARCH PROBLEM - 96 RESEARCH EVALUATION FOR THE MASK INDUSTRY - 98 RESEARCH LIMITATIONS - 99 RECOMMENDATION AND FUTURE RESEARCH - 100 - REFERENCES - 102 APPENDIX A - THE SYMBOL OF MASK PRODUCTION - 113 APPENDIX B - SAMPLING CONTROL METHOD - 115 APPENDIX C - SAMPLE OF INTERVIEWS - 116 - VI List of Figures Page Number Figure 1: Figure 2: Figure 3: Figure 4: Figure 5: Figure 6: Figure 7: Figure 8: Figure 9: Figure 10: Figure 11: Figure 12: Figure 13: Figure 14: Figure 15: Figure 16: Figure 17: Figure 18: Figure 19: Figure 20: Figure 21: Figure 22: Figure 23: Figure 24: Figure 25: Figure 26: Figure 27: Figure 28: The six sigma diagram - 17 DMAIC cycle - 19 DMADV cycle - 20 Levels of roles - 23 FTA symbols - 26 Flow chart symbols - 27 Example of histogram - 28 Example for Pareto Diagram - 29 Example for Cause and Effect Diagram - 30 Example of a Control Chart - 31 raw material Input process - 41 The process linking the company with its customers - 42 Simplified depiction of output process - 43 The process between purchase department and customers - 45 The whole production process for the mask company - 47 Process for manufacturing masks - 49 Theoretical Model for this thesis - 55 Fishbone diagram for identifying defective products - 60 A Pareto chart of the main causes of defects - 62 The p chart for finished goods in July 2009 - 68 The p chart for semifinished goods in July 2009 - 69 The P chart of total production in July 2009 - 72 Empirical Findings and Analysis - 75 The lifecycle for implementing the Six Sigma technique - 76 The Six Sigma deployment model - 77 The p values for finished goods after improvement - 83 The semi finished goods data after improvement - 84 The total goods after improvement - 85 - VII List of Table Page Number Table 1: Table 2: Table 3: Table 4: Table 5: Table 6: Table 7: Table 8: Table 9: Table 10: Table 11: Table 12: Table 13: Table 14: Table 15: Table 16: Table 17: The sigma scale - 16 Comparison of DMAIC and DMADV - 21 FMEA calculation diagram - 24 The classification of quality level for product quality - 44 Weekly data for finished goods in July 2009 - 64 Weekly data for semifinished goods in July 2009 - 64 The proportion of finished goods in July 2009 - 65 The proportion of semifinished goods in July 2009 - 66 The CL, UCL and LCL for finished goods in July 2009 - 67 The CL, UCL and LCL for semifinished goods in July 2009 - 68 Summary of July production in 2009 - 71 The finished goods after improvement in July 2010 - 81 The semi finished goods after improvement in 2010 - 81 Summary of production after improvement in July of 2010 - 86 Comparison of total goods data - 87 The comparison for the case study - 88 Summary of results in the case - 92 - VIII Thesis Title Achieving Quality Improvement in the Mask Manufacturing Industry by Using the Six Sigma Technique Project Supervisors Principal Supervisor: Associate Professor YuanTong Gu School of Engineering Systems Faculty of Built Environment and Engineering Queensland University of Technology (QUT) Associate Supervisor: Dr Azharul Karim School of Engineering Systems Faculty of Built Environment and Engineering Queensland University of Technology (QUT) Associate Supervisor: Professor Lin Ma School of Engineering Systems Faculty of Built Environment and Engineering Queensland University of Technology (QUT) IX Azadegan, A., & Pai, D (2008) Industrial awards as manifests of business performance: An empirical 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And what is your position in here? Answer 1: I am production manager in the manufacturing department and I have been working in the manufacturing department for almost ten years Question 2: Do you understand or clear about the quality control tools for whole manufacturing process? And how many quality control tools or software does this company use? Answer 2: I have been an operator for almost years and I only can state that I understand and clear about the manufacturing processes for around ninety percentages There are only two methods in this company which are total inspection and random inspection This company does not utilize any particularly statistic software at this moment and it just uses Microsoft Excel Question 3: Does the department calculate the production capacity for monthly or weekly? Why the manufacturing and quality control departments produce amount of defective goods each week? - 116 - Answer 3: In this company, the department calculates the data for monthly And I will also look the calculation data and observe the employees working situations There are some possible reasons for providing the defective products For example, sometimes the workers will increase the speed for producing the high capacity and sometimes the employees will chat with other workers when they are manufacturing the products Moreover, I also have considered that the inspection method might have inaccurate problems and the supplier might provide defective raw materials for our company Question 4: Have you want to resolve those problems by using different skill or technique? Answer 4: I want to resolve those problems and increase the acceptable product rate Because when the manufacturing department produces the amount of defective products, those products are costly expenses for the business profit If there has any better resolution or technique, I think I will consider it - 117 - ... investigate the current quality control practices in a mask industry, then, to explore the feasibility of using Six Sigma technique in that industry, and finally, to implement the Six Sigma technique. .. been thoroughly investigated in the past owing to the mask industry is an emerging but burgeoning manufacturing industry in the market and therefore right quality technique for the industry has... 87 The comparison for the case study - 88 Summary of results in the case - 92 - VIII Thesis Title Achieving Quality Improvement in the Mask Manufacturing Industry by Using the Six