Polaroid Case
Polaroid Case
I. We Need Greenlight ' But for Which Reason? Quality control of film cartridges on R2 was a routine process, but the QC department found that there are some discrepancies between the defect rate of QC auditors and the Operators. Defects were being passed through the entire manufacturing process unnoticed. While pre-existing measurements at quality control showed low overall defect rates, there were complications in the process and interference from operators that affected QC numbers. Project Greenlight was initially necessary to allow for accurate measurement of processes and quality control during the process as opposed to the end of the process. Once implemented, Greenlight would serve to measure and identify manufacturing process steps that were not in control and might produce defects. While necessary to provide a clear understanding of quality control through each step of the manufacturing process, upper management seemed less interested in Greenlight’s success as a source of continual improvement and more in its ability to cut personnel from the quality control side. Greenlight is necessary in their minds, but not for the reasons we have suggested.
II. X-bar and R charts to the Rescue.
(Please see exhibits 1-5 in the appendix for R2 process control charts) After generating X-bar and R charts for both the finger height and pod weight processes, we can generate a few conclusions. First, both R-charts show subgroup ranges that are within the control limits, which suggests that the variation between subgroups is consistent. However, we can clearly see from the X-bar chart for finger height that this process is not in control. Moreover, this seems to be a substantial problem, as these limits are violated frequently. Exhibit 5 shows the graphs for finger-height and pod-weight in each shift. The pod weight graphs for Shift A, B and C shows that processes are in control. Finger height graphs for shift B shows that
I. We Need Greenlight ' But for Which Reason? Quality control of film cartridges on R2 was a routine process, but the QC department found that there are some discrepancies between the defect rate of QC auditors and the Operators. Defects were being passed through the entire manufacturing process unnoticed. While pre-existing measurements at quality control showed low overall defect rates, there were complications in the process and interference from operators that affected QC numbers. Project Greenlight was initially necessary to allow for accurate measurement of processes and quality control during the process as opposed to the end of the process. Once implemented, Greenlight would serve to measure and identify manufacturing process steps that were not in control and might produce defects. While necessary to provide a clear understanding of quality control through each step of the manufacturing process, upper management seemed less interested in Greenlight’s success as a source of continual improvement and more in its ability to cut personnel from the quality control side. Greenlight is necessary in their minds, but not for the reasons we have suggested.
II. X-bar and R charts to the Rescue.
(Please see exhibits 1-5 in the appendix for R2 process control charts) After generating X-bar and R charts for both the finger height and pod weight processes, we can generate a few conclusions. First, both R-charts show subgroup ranges that are within the control limits, which suggests that the variation between subgroups is consistent. However, we can clearly see from the X-bar chart for finger height that this process is not in control. Moreover, this seems to be a substantial problem, as these limits are violated frequently. Exhibit 5 shows the graphs for finger-height and pod-weight in each shift. The pod weight graphs for Shift A, B and C shows that processes are in control. Finger height graphs for shift B shows that