A FRAMEWORK FOR ENHANCING THE RESPONSIVENESS TO DEFECTS VIA SPC AND WORKER EMPOWERMENT

The ultimate goal of the online quality control initiatives is to prevent the occurrence of defects or
rather to detect the occurrence of defects as fast as possible in order to interfere with corrective
actions. Generally, Statistical Process Control (SPC) tools such as control charts can be effectively
applied to monitor the production processes and can be used as an indicator for the occurrence of
assignable causes in the process which are mainly responsible for the occurrence of defects.
Typically, the out of control signals resulted from control charts or other signs of developing
defective items that are observed directly through visual inspection necessitate a rapid response
from the shop floor operators. Meanwhile, the lack of worker empowerment and poor
communication between shop floor workers and engineers as well as managers are mainly
responsible for the late decisions and actions which lead to increased defect rates. This paper
presents a framework that integrates SPC approaches with worker empowerment practices to
enhance the responsiveness toward detected defects as well as preventing the occurrence of more
ones. Besides, a case study concerned with the manufacturing of Unplasticized Polyvinyl Chloride
(UPVC) pipes has been conducted to demonstrate the application of the proposed framework.