1st Edition
Popular Manufacturing Myths Eliminating Widely Held Beliefs That Reduce Competitiveness
Addressing the beliefs and attitudes that can be detrimental to your organization’s competitiveness, Popular Manufacturing Myths: Eliminating Widely Held Beliefs That Reduce Competitiveness offers time-tested insight into the most common myths encountered in manufacturing environments. It classifies these myths into management myths, shop floor myths, and if appropriate, shared management and shop floor myths.
Explaining the reasons why these deeply ingrained beliefs exist, the book outlines remedies that can help to quickly dispel them within your organization. It presents case studies that examine these myths and includes numerous real-world examples that outline simple, yet effective, solutions. Some of the myths dispelled in this book include:
- Increasing line speed always decreases quality and creates more scrap
- Reducing the cost of raw materials will decrease the cost of manufacturing
- Increased inspection will boost quality
- If it is successful in R&D, it will be successful in production
- Process problems can only be solved by changing one process parameter at a time
Covering the basics of data collection tools, techniques, and analysis, the text offers simple methods to structure your data to assist in communicating clear and logical conclusions across the organization. The author keeps the arithmetic and statistics to a minimum, so readers only require a basic understanding of averaging and normal variation. However, for those who wish to understand a little bit more about a particular concept, technique, tool, or procedure, the book includes an addendum chapter with more detailed explanations and sample calculations.
Introduction to Manufacturing Myths
The Human Factor
Natural Variation
An Adjustment Is an Adjustment
Is It Ok if I Tweak?
Expectational Myths
Expectational Myths
Two Safety-Related Expectational Myths
Safety versus Productivity
Accident Reports
Remedy
Quality-Related Expectational Myth
Productivity versus Quality
The Sales and Marketing Connection
Dispelling the Myths
Data Myths
Dispelling the Myths
The Reality of Collecting Shop Floor Data
Misuse of Data
In Conclusion
Our Process Is Different
Management Myth: Our Process Is Different
The Control Chart
A Process Is a Process
Operators
In Conclusion
Reference
Measurement Process Myths
The Measurement Process
People
Measured Product
Measurement Procedures
Measurement Equipment
Accuracy versus Precision
Accuracy
Precision
Resolution versus Discrimination
Resolution
Discrimination
In Conclusion
Only Adjust One Process Parameter at a Time
Not Uncommon
Classes of Problems
Interactions
The Problem-Solving Matrix
The Interaction Plot
In Conclusion
Raw Material Myths
Dispelling This Myth
In Conclusion
Addendum
Process Capability Studies
Standard Deviation
Evolutionary Optimization
Glossary
Bibliography
Index
Biography
Douglas B. Relyea is the founder and senior partner of Quality Principle Associates a New England-based consulting firm that specializes in the education and application of data analysis techniques to industrial problem solving.
Mr. Relyea has a degree in manufacturing engineering from Three Rivers Community College in Connecticut and a business degree from Eastern Connecticut State University.
He spent twenty years working at General Dynamics and a division of Rogers Corporation, specializing in extrusion, die stamping, machining and molding processes servicing the automotive and business equipment industries. During his time in industry he filled positions such as first-line supervisor, quality assurance manager, engineering manager, maintenance manager, and sales and marketing product manager. Most recently, Mr. Relyea contributed Chapter 19 of the Wire Association International Wire Handbook. This chapter is entitled "Elements of Statistical Quality Control."
In 1987 he left industry and formed Quality Principle Associates.
