Re-design of the Quality Control System in the Lighting Industry

Abstract

Nowadays, manufacturing companies face the challenge to maintain low prices, products with customised quality, and a low scrap rate. The case study is focused on one of the global enterprises in the lighting industry. This study has aimed to analyse and minimize scrap using re-designing the quality control system transferring the end-of-line to an in-process quality approach (in-process inspection). The quality inspector only checks the finished products; thus, certain components must be discarded. The goal is to minimize the discarding of components in the final step, after they have gone through all processes, by stopping them as early in the process as possible. After all the implementation was done, in a month of production the decreasing of the scrap has led to an economic reduction in total with 4.661 euro cumulated in different parts of assembly (aluminium, metal and polymer) and the other areas (surface treatment, die casting, mould injection).