Abstract
Problem statement: Flexible Printed Circuit or FPC, one of automotive electronic parts, has been developed for lighting automotive vehicles by assembling with the LED. The quality performances or responses of lighting vehicles are relied on the circuit width of an FPC and the etched rate of acid solution. According to the current operating condition of an FPC company, the capability of the manufacturing process is under the company requirement. The standard deviation of FPC circuit widths is at higher levels and the mean is also worse than specifications. Approach: In this process improvement there was four sequential steps based on the designed experiments, steepest descent and interchangeable linear constrained response surface optimization or IC-LCRSOM. An investigation aims to determine the preferable levels of significant process variables affecting multiple responses. Results: The new settings from the IC-LCRSOM improved all performance measures in terms of both the mean and the standard deviation on all process patterns. Conclusion: From this sequential optimization the developed mathematical model has tested for adequacy using analysis of variance and other adequacy measures. In the actual investigation, the new operating conditions lead to higher levels of the etched rate and process capability including lower levels of the standard deviation of the circuit widths and etched rate when compared.
Highlights
Flexible Printed Circuits (FPC) play a major role in all electronics industries
The sample mean on the bottom circuit width is improved from 0.097-0.099 mm, the sample standard deviation from 0.0026-0.0024 mm
We have introduced the mathematical model involving some limitations on the process variables to handle the different process responses
Summary
Flexible Printed Circuits (FPC) play a major role in all electronics industries. Nowadays, the market requires increasingly complicated and sophisticated electronic parts in terms of specifications (Tong et al, 2004). A collection of designed experiments and mathematical programming techniques have been applied for quality improvement in automotive electronic parts. On characteristics of the FPC, the circuit width can be categorized into Top (T) and Bottom (B) circuit lines (Fig. 1) These are the varieties on the horizontal etching. According to the current process capability study, the sigma level of the FPC manufacturing process is not very satisfactory. This etching process should be investigated in order to reach the optimal operating condition. This improvement applies four steps of experimental designs and analyses to find out the suitable levels of process variables. Designed experiments can determine and quantify how the interaction of two or more process variables affects the FPC process responses. Treatments are assigned completely at random so that each experimental unit has the same chance of receiving any one treatment (Brase and Brase, 2011)
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