Company “Best Inc” manufactures hydraulic switching valves for the aerospace industry. This company has been the leader in the industry for the last 20 years. However, Competition got smarter and business is not as good as it was. The Vice President and the Quality Director “Best” realizes that current Quality practices do not include Statistical Process Control (SPC), as part of the manufacturing process. You are given the project to develop a plan to implement SPC by December 2015. Technical and detailed information is not provided with the purpose to create a plan to be of a “generic format”. Initial assumptions: 1- “Best” is “medium” size (300 employees). Support groups (Quality engineering, Mfg Engineering, etc) constitute 30% of the work force. 2- Manufacturing rate is 500 valves per week. The company produces 4 different models of valves through 4 successive work stations A, B, C, and D with equal work load (25% each), and a “final” functional acceptance test” as the final manufacturing sequence before shipping. 3- The Design engineering group has a list of 15 “key characteristics” available upon request. 4- The company has a “weak” QMS in place. 5- The company is willing to invest 15,000 – 20,000 man-hours in this project (including training, pilot programs…etc), if needed. Deliverables from the project:
1- List of assumptions and justifications
2- Detailed action plan to meet deadline of December 2015.
3- Procedure to execute SPC, including instructions to assure its correct application when used in the assembly line.
4- Definition of a System to measure effectiveness of this SPC process.