Westover Electrical

Westover Electrical

Executive Summary

Westover electrical, Inc. Houston Manufacturer of wire windings

J : Westover Electrical, Inc., is a medium-size Houston manufacturer of wire windings used in making electric motors.

R: Winding or "Coil" copper wires wound around a core, to use to create or receive electromagnetic energy.

J : The company VP of operations Joe Wilson, has experienced an increasing problem with rejected products found in the manufacturing operations. Joe hired a consultant, Roger Gagnon to find out why the problems occur.

3Problem statementThe root cause of the increasing rejected products needs to be found to prevent further losses

4Analysis

R : By using different quality management tools, we would be able to analyze the data given more accurately.

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Westover Electrical Winding Operation Flow ChartProduction of windings by Machine 1, 2 and 3Windings sent to Quality ControlInspection of electrical windings

Windings sent to packagingPackaging personnel inspect their workDefects found are corrected on the spotWindings are packagedR : This flowchart graphically presents the process of making a wire winding. J : This helps us to analyze the winding process to determine what the different processes are and where to exert change.

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Too many windings are found to be defective and require reworking before they can be packagedR : Based on the reject log by Joe Wilson, we would come up with this fishbone diagram, illustrating the different factors that would have caused the winding defects. The problem here refers to the winding defects. 7Statistical Process Control ChartJ : By computing the total number of rejects per date, we are able to come up with this statistical process control chart. As the chart shows, theres a seemingly downward trend of rejected wire windings throughout the days of January.

8Westover Electrical Winding Operation Flow ChartR : Using the raw data from the Quality Control, the factors that heavily influences the occurring defects are the Abraded wire, Failed Electrical Test and Broken Leads but this is using only the raw data given.

9Total DefectsTotal Defects per WinderWinder 177Winder 242Winder 3142J : Since we were tasked to assume that each defective unit is caused by only one single defect we grouped each defects by Winder 1, Winder 2 and Winder 3 from respective machines 1, 2 and 3. We were able to come up with this table.

R : As illustrated in the Paretto chart, the majority of the defects are found in Winder 3 and followed by Winder 1.

10Recommendations

Westover Electrical Winding Operation Flow ChartProduction of windings by Machine 1, 2 and 3Windings sent to Quality ControlInspection of electrical windingsRework of items sent from Machine 1 and 3 to lessen defectsWindings sent to packagingPackaging personnel inspect their workDefects found by personnel are corrected on the spotWindings are packaged12The Assumption is 80% of rework turnout will be flawless with a margin of 20% error.

Winders 3 and 1Total defects175Number of original defects less rework86Percentage difference after rework67.05% over 32.95% remaining defectsR: This would mean hiring extra labor to accommodate the additional rework that will be done before sending it to Packaging. Generating, more costs on labor and initial costs for training.

13Replace winder machine 3Winder 3 defects0Number of original defects less rework119Percentage difference after rework54.41% over 45.59% remaining defectsR : Machine 3 should be replaced entirely since it generates the most defects among all the machines. The assumption of replacing machine 3 is that all the defects generated by machine 3 will be down to 0 %. This would mean buying a new machine to replace winder 3.

14Assumption : 65% of defects for each machine will go down With a margin of 35% defects remaining.Winder 1, 2 and 3261 x 65%= 170Number of original defects less rework91Percentage difference after rework65.13% over 34.87% remaining defectsMACHINE OVER-ALL MAINTENANCER : Machine 1, 2 and 3 will undergo punitive maintenance since all the defects have been accounted for, for each machine. The assumption is that 65% of defects for each machine will go down. With a margin of 35% defects remaining.This would mean we will halt production to remedy the problems with the machines to reduce the defects generated by each machine

15BEST SOLUTION1st recommendationThe defects were mainly concentrated in the machines 1 and 3 so the problems were mainly caused by this 2 machines and remedying them would lessen the defects that production will generate.

J : The best recommendation is the 1st one. The defects were mainly concentrated in the machines 1 and 3 so the problems were mainly caused by this 2 machines and remedying them would lessen the defects that production will generate.

17Why not the 2nd recommendation ? Higher costsHigher risksJ : Opting for the 2nd recommendation would incur a lot more cost since a machine would require high capital costs and also there are the risks that the defects would plague the new machine 3 when time passes. 18Why not the 3rd Recommendation?Lower cost but greater riskOpting for the 3rd implementation can be implemented since it will cost less than hiring new labor but the risks are that the defects might come back after a time the punitive maintenance is done.

19CONCLUSIONR : Westover Electrical, Inc. had major production problems concerning defective windings that require reworking before they can be packaged. This caused the company additional unnecessary expenses. By using different total quality management tools, we were able to determine which cause of the defect to focus our resources on. In this way, we were able to point the company to the right direction in order to solve the problem.

J: Using total quality management tools were a great help since not only did they provide an easier way to visualize data, but also organized the data in such a way that we were able to pin-point the root causes of the main problem.

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