Product quality improvement for end users : a case study of harness wire and connector assembly factory

Abstract

Improves product quality of harness wire so as to fulfil customer requirement in an electronic assembly factory. Product quality is a competitive advantage. This case study focused on harness wire and emphasise on the improvement of manufacturing area. Analysis of current quality control in Molex Thailand was done in the first stage. Then FMEA technique was selected to prevent, reduce and eliminate potential and known failures of the existing products in order to reduce customer complaints. The case study was an implementation of FMEA technique. Starting to seek the quality criteria from customer complaints record by Pareto diaigram to find out the critical quality criteria and selected five part number to run FMEA program according to its value and occurrence. Top commitment from management level and training were significant important at the beginning of this study. Setting up FMEA team was done after top management commitment. Workmanship standard and sampling plan were improved during FMEA program and came out with standard procedures for quality product improvement for the end users after FMEA implementation. the result of this FMEA implementation show 43.76 percent reduction of customer complaint items in manufacturing area comparing between 1997 and 1998. After FMEA implementation, standard procedures came out to prevent and solve selected quality criteria. This study got seven cases standard procedures. From case I-case VII, FMEA team came out the standard procedure for setting up crimping machine, the standard procedure for preventive maintenance level II and level III, the standard procedure for crimping specification and tolerance analysis, the standard procedure for tighten sampling plan and reduced sampling plan, the standard procedure for continuity test, the standard procedure for color cable checker and the standard procedure new carton respectively.