Enhancement in quality and productivity: a riskless approach based on optimum selection of tolerance and improvement strategies

Abstract

The need of higher quality products from the customers and the tendency of industries to quality improvement for maintaining their competitive position over the long run are the main motives of using improvement methodologies. However, any use of improvement methodology besides its additional costs will also change the total variability of the process. Changes in total variability will affect the optimal value of tolerance as well as the quality of the product. Therefore, one of the main concerns of the producers is to find an effective way to manufacture their goods in a manner that reduces the production costs and gains customers’ satisfaction. To meet these goals, this study introduces an algorithm to propose a riskless approach of improvement that results in the maximum amount of net savings. It is shown that using appropriate improvement strategies simultaneous with a proper selection of tolerance have an important impact to enhance productivity and quality.

Keywords:

• algorithm
• cost reduction
• optimal tolerance
• productivity improvement
• process variability

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the encouraging and helpful comments of two anonymous reviewers whose suggestions helped improve and clarify several concepts in the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 61175041], [grant number 11371077]; Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities in China [grant number DUT12LK29].