On quality improvement of a multistate production network with service level consideration

ABSTRACT

This paper studies the quality improvement issue to determine the defect rates for workstations to achieve (decrease) in a production system. A multistate production network is adopted to model the production system, where the output is required to satisfy the demand with a specified service level. This service level is the probability that the multistate production network produces greater output amount than a required demand. A discrete-time Markov chain is proposed to construct this multistate production network. In particular, the production manager is asked to enhance the productivity by reducing the raw materials to a tightened input amount. To enhance the productivity as well as to satisfy the same demand and service level, quality improvement is therefore implemented to set the target defect rates of workstations. This target defect rate can be seen as a reference for a workstation to improve its quality. A benchmark example of tile production system is utilised to demonstrate the model building and quality improvement. The benchmark example also shows that the quality improvement can enhance the system reliability of the multistate production network.

KEYWORDS:

• Multistate production network
• service level
• quality improvement
• target defect rate

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan, Republic of China [grant number MOST 103-2218-E-011-010-MY3].

Notes on contributors

Ping-Chen Chang

Ping-Chen Chang is currently an independent postdoctoral fellow of Industrial Management Department, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taiwan, Republic of China. He received his bachelor degree in the Department of Industrial and Business Management from Chang Gung University, Taiwan. He obtained his master degree in the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management at Yuan Ze University, Taiwan. He obtained his PhD degree in the Department of Industrial Management at National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taiwan. He was a recipient of the best student paper award from the 2011 International Conference on Reliability and Quality in Design (ISSAT). His research interests include stochastic network reliability, performance evaluation, and operations management.