Parametric design for quality improvement of injection-moulded product in a consumer electronics conglomerate

Abstract

Current global market trends place an enormous amount of pressure on the process engineers to deliver functional products at the lowest possible cost. Taguchi's robust design methods provide a systematic and efficient method for developing improved products at reduced cost. This paper presents an application of Taguchi's parametric design methodology which is popularly known as robust design methodology to achieve improvements in product quality through process optimisation in a manufacturing context undertaken at the automation division of one of India's largest consumer electronics conglomerate. Plastic-moulded components are manufactured using automatic injection moulding machines to meet the needs of the entire group. During the preliminary investigation it was observed that sink mark on the surface of the moulded plastic component was the main contributor for rejection of the components and hence was selected as a measure for quality improvement. Taguchi's methods were applied and significant improvements in quality levels followed leading to an improvement of 84.95% reduction in current rejection rates. The authors advocate the need for manufacturing organisations to adopt Taguchi's robust design methodologies for process optimisation so as to achieve higher levels of quality on a continuing basis to sustain the intense global competitive pressures.