M
Martin_v_v
Dear all,
Currently I am working for a manufacturer of large cylinders. Our company produces cylinders which are at max. 70 meters long and can weigh as much as 80 tonnes. Demand for any particular size cylinders is limited in this branch, which for us means that a customer need is translated into a drawing in which all critical cylinder sizes can vary. (This is the engineer to order part) To stick to the length example, the maximum cylinder length is 70 meters but the minimum is 2 meters. We literally produce every size between 2 and 70 depending on customer demand. Another characteristic, depending on customer usage our cylinders are designed to operate between five and one-thousand bar.
Dealing with demand in this way has lead to average batch sizes between 2 and 3, also over a longer period the amount of times an exact cylinder design is repeated is low. Last but not least all our machines are only able to process one piece at a time. So even when we produces a batch of 2 cylinders, in our process every machine will only process a single piece of that batch at a time. Now the great challenge, how do we assure quality in these products?
We want to apply something similar to Process Capability Studies, in which we aim at the trigger function of Capability studies. We want to know when the process is in danger of going out of control so that we can timely undertake action so that we prevent greater damage and at the same time lower the costs of our internal defects.
Do you have any thoughts of how to monitor the capability of the process in our situation?
Currently I am working for a manufacturer of large cylinders. Our company produces cylinders which are at max. 70 meters long and can weigh as much as 80 tonnes. Demand for any particular size cylinders is limited in this branch, which for us means that a customer need is translated into a drawing in which all critical cylinder sizes can vary. (This is the engineer to order part) To stick to the length example, the maximum cylinder length is 70 meters but the minimum is 2 meters. We literally produce every size between 2 and 70 depending on customer demand. Another characteristic, depending on customer usage our cylinders are designed to operate between five and one-thousand bar.
Dealing with demand in this way has lead to average batch sizes between 2 and 3, also over a longer period the amount of times an exact cylinder design is repeated is low. Last but not least all our machines are only able to process one piece at a time. So even when we produces a batch of 2 cylinders, in our process every machine will only process a single piece of that batch at a time. Now the great challenge, how do we assure quality in these products?
We want to apply something similar to Process Capability Studies, in which we aim at the trigger function of Capability studies. We want to know when the process is in danger of going out of control so that we can timely undertake action so that we prevent greater damage and at the same time lower the costs of our internal defects.
Do you have any thoughts of how to monitor the capability of the process in our situation?