Sustainable quality control mechanism of heavy truck production process for Plant-wide production process

Abstract

To overcome disability and default in process quality control and failure of traditional quality management in job shop manufacturing and customised orders, which are important issues in lean production, we investigate a sustainable quality control of plant-wide production process. In this paper, we construct the mechanisms consisting of pre-production quality prevention, quality control of production process and post-production feedback, using modified turtle diagram and VDA-based evaluation model. After the application of the mechanism in a large heavy truck enterprise in Chine for three years, the average benefit of the enterprise reached 36.58 million yuan, the gross loss of the single after-sales service decreased by 37.4%, and the net loss decreased by 21.1%, which indicates improvement of capacity of sustainable development. Case above in our paper shows that the mechanism we put forward is effective and practical for continuous improvement of quality management and sustainable development of enterprises. Besides, it provides a further supplement to existing lean production theory.

KEYWORDS:

• Sustainability
• Plant-wide production process
• quality control
• turtle chart
• quality control capability evaluation model

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributors

Hongfei Guo received his Ph.D. degree, he is currently the Deputy Dean, Associate Professor, and Graduate Supervisor of the Institute of Internet of Things and Logistics Engineering of Jinan University. He serves as a specially appointed grassroots management expert for the management promotion of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council of the People's Republic of China. He is also a SME service consultant for the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the People's Republic of China, and the Deputy Secretary-General of the Industrial Engineering Branch of the Chinese Mechanical Engineering Society. His team was selected into the Inner Mongolia “Prairie Talents” High-level Talent Project, Inner Mongolia “Prairie Talents” Industry Innovation (Entrepreneurship) Talent Team and Guangzhou Industry Leading Talent Concentration Project-“Innovation Leading Team”. He has hosted more than 40 scientific research projects and been honored by more than 20 provincial and ministerial awards, such as : (1) the second prize of China's Industry-University-Research Cooperation Innovation Achievement Award; (2) the first Guangdong Science and Technology Cooperation Award; (3) the first prize of Guangdong's enterprise management modernisation innovation achievement; (4) the first prize of the 23rd Inner Mongolia's enterprise management modernisation innovation achievement; (5) the second prize of scientific and technological progress of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. His current research interests include Industrial Internet of Things, Digital Twins, and Intelligent Manufacturing.

Ru Zhang is a graduate student in applied mathematics at MATHÉMATIQUES & INFORMATIQUE at Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. He obtained his undergraduate degree from Jinan University in China. In addition, he worked as a research assistant at Jinan University and Wuhan University. His research topics include optimal control theory, statistical learning and quantitative investment. He has published academic articles in journals such as COMPLEXITY.

Yingxin Zhu is an undergraduate student in School of Intelligent Systems Science and Engineering at Jinan University in China. Her research interests include smart manufacturing system and industrial engineering.

Ting Qu is a full professor at School of Intelligent Systems Science and Engineering, Jinan University (China). He received his BEng and MPhil degrees from School of Mechanical Engineering of Xi'an Jiaotong University (China), and obtained PhD degree from the department of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering of The University of Hong Kong. After taking the positions of postdoctoral research fellow and research assistant professor at HKU, he was appointed as a full professor in 2010 and the department head of Industrial Engineering in 2014 at Guangdong University of Technology (China). In 2016, he moved to Jinan University. Prof. Qu's research interests include IoT-based smart manufacturing systems, logistics and supply chain management, and industrial product/production service systems. He has undertaken over twenty research projects funded by government and industry, and has published over 100 technical papers in these areas, half of which have appeared in reputable journals. Professor Qu serves as editorial board members of a number of national and international journals.

Min Zou is studying for a graduate student at Zhejiang University. She obtained her undergraduate degree from Jinan University in China. In addition, she worked as a research assistant in Jinan University and a management assistant in Zhuhai Industrial Park, China. Her research topics include random process analysis and quantitative management analysis.

Xiangyue Chen is Master Student of Education at the Institute of Education in University College London (UCL) from September 2020. She achieved the Bachelor Degree in Translation at Jinan University (China) where she also obtained her Second Degree in Financial Engineering in 2020. She has been involved in several national projects, including the field of Economics and Translation. She is author and co-author of about 15 publications in relevant international journals, about industrial mechanism, Modern Economic System, international education, applied linguistics and translation. She is member of Global Chain and Innovation Chain of several International Conferences.

Yaping Ren received his B.S. degree in communications and transportation engineering from Liaocheng University, Liaocheng, China, in 2014, and his M.S. degree in Transportation College of Northeast Forestry University, China, in 2016. He received his Ph.D. degree in the School of Mechanical Science and Engineering from Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), China, in 2019. He was also a visiting scholar in Environmental and Ecological Engineering (EEE) at Purdue University, U.S. from Sept. 2017 to August. 2019. He is currently an Associate Professor in the School of Intelligent Systems Science and Engineering, Jinan University (Zhuhai Campus). His research mainly focuses on industrial engineering, disassembly planning, transportation planning, decision making and optimization methods.

Zhihui He is the director of the mechanical properties Laboratory of Metrology and Testing Technology Research Institute of China Northern Heavy Industries Group Co., Ltd. Her research interests include material properties and applications, metal materials and heat treatment. She has published 22 papers in leading journals in related research fields and obtained 8 patents.

Additional information

Funding

This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51875251); the Science and Technology Plan Project of Guangzhou (No. 202002030321); the Guangdong Academic Degree and Graduate Education Reform Research Project, China (No. 2019JGXM15); the Guangdong Graduate Education Innovation Project (No. 82620516); the Science and Technology Plan Project of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region (No. 2019GG238); the 2018 Guangzhou Leading Innovation Team Program, China (No. 201909010006); the 2018 Panyun Leading Innovation Team Program, China (No. 2018-R01-4); Major project of Science and Technology Plan of Hohhot (No. 2020-Gao-Zhong-4); and the Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation of Guangdong Province of China (No. 2019A1515110399).