Group 07 Sec b Case Analysis

Process Control at Polaroid

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Professor : Rupesh Kumar Pati & Pof. Anand G By: Abhishek Ojha (EPGP - 04B - 003) Saurabh Kumar Singh (EPGP – 04B - 102) Toban Varghese (EPGP – 04B – 116)


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Contents Polaroid Background............................................................................................2 Issues before the Project Green Light...................................................................3 Project Green Light...............................................................................................5 Control Chart Selection........................................................................................5 Ishikawa Diagram to show efficacy of Greenlight Project...................................12 Recommendations to further enhance quality...................................................13 Attachments.......................................................................................................14

POLAROID BACKGROUND


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Polaroid’s main line of business was instant photography. Edwin H. Land, Polaroid’s founder revolutionized photographic industry in 1948 with development of Polaroid camera. Since then, Polaroid had led the instant photography market. By mid-1970s, it offered two basic types of instant films viz. 1. Peel Apart 2. Integral.

Peel-apart film was based on older technology where user physically pulled the film from the camera, and then after a brief period, peeled apart the two sides of the film envelope to obtain the finished photograph. In integral film customers inserted a plastic cartridge containing ten frames. Top cover sheet was automatically ejected from the camera. By the mid-1980s most consumer instant film was integral. So there was a high demand for integral films. Due to large production of the films care was taken to meet the quality standards.

ISSUES BEFORE THE PROJECT GREEN LIGHT


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Some of the shortcomings before the introduction of “Project Green Line” ( Endeavour to enhance quality in the product) are  Quality Control (QC) department at Polaroid had final responsibility

of release of films to the market. Process engineers at Polaroid were responsible for materials while mechanical engineers were responsible for the equipments. Because no one was responsible for the overall process of production, when defects were discovered much time was lost in blaming materials or machines.  The overall cost of defective products crossed more than $2M.  Each machinery ran on different parameters hence each reacted

uniquely to new parts, each ran at slightly different speed and each put products with different level of variations. These situations gave rise to low quality products.  QC used only perfect cameras for testing while most of the

customers had imperfect cameras. Hence QC was easily missing those issues where which were related to films and imperfect cameras.  Some people thought that QC was not testing issues which

customers do encounter.  Sampling process was imprecise and often inaccurate.  Act of testing was itself increasing the defect rate as whenever QC

auditors found a defective sample in a lot, they tested the larger sample from that lot and next lot.


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PROJECT GREEN LIGHT Green Light, came from Murray’s original idea of having a light over the machines that would be green when they were running on target. As a part of green light it was needed to implement operator based statistical process control. The final plan consisted of three key elements.  First, Statistical process control principles would be adopted, as the

processes in control and capable of producing within specification would produce more with consistent quality.  Second, production operators would be given the process control

tools that the process engineering technicians has been using, and in conjugation with sampling would be expected to make deposition decision themselves.  Third quality control auditors would concentrate on training

operators and operationalizing specification one new products. There were two important aspects of the project which the project promoters had to sell to the higher management  Cost saving could be achieved through reduced sampling.  Due to reduced sample quality would not suffer.

CONTROL CHART SELECTION


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Control chart for mean and standard deviation was selected to examine the process as range accounts only for the maximum and minimum sample values and is less effective than for large samples, where as sample standard deviation serves as a better measure of process variability. Minitab software is used to plot the various X bar s graphs. Operator’s measurement of machine is listed from 3rd August to 21st August. 3 different shifts are distinguished as A, B and C. Pod Weight Control And As per the graph for shift A pod weight performance variability is under control i.e. between UCL and LCL which means the process is under control. This indicated that the quality is good as the process is under control although the number of quality control sample is reduced. Please note that the X-bar chart, on top, shows the mean or average of each subgroup. It is used to analyze central location. The sigma chart, on the bottom, shows how the data is spread and used to study system


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variability.

And As per the graph for shift B pod weight performance variability is under control i.e. between UCL and LCL which means the process is under


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control. This indicated that the quality is good as the process is under control although the number of quality control sample is reduced.


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And As per the graph for shift C pod weight performance variability is under control i.e. between UCL and LCL which means the process is under control. This indicated that the quality is good as the process is under control although the number of quality control sample is reduced. However the last three dates show decreasing trend. So Polaroid should investigate the cause before the process goes out of control.


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Finger Height Control The control of Finger height in Shift A is out of control. Machine should be inspected, parameters at which machine is running should be reviewed and raw materials quality should be inspected as to find out why is the process going out of control. First two and last points are clearly our of control as they lie outside the UCL-LCL limit.

The control of Finger height in Shift B seems totally out of control. Machine should be inspected, parameters at which machine is running


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should be reviewed and raw materials quality should be inspected as to find out why is the process going out of control. Almost all the points are out of control. This shift should be clearly inspected and changes should be brought in to control the process and thereby enhancing the quality.

Shift C seems to be in control as all the points are lying within the LCL and UCL limits and also no part of the graph is showing tendency to increase or decrease.


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ISHIKAWA DIAGRAM TO SHOW EFFICACY OF GREENLIGHT PROJECT


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RECOMMENDATIONS TO FURTHER ENHANCE QUALITY.  Investigating the root cause of the problem is mandatory. Most of

samples of Finger Height measurement are out of control (as


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seen from above control charts). Polaroid should investigate the cause of this problem so they can prevent the same problem occurring in the future.  Polaroid should ensure that the operators should adhere to the

processes. They should keep themselves off from tweaking in the machinery and follow the standards. Standards will help in reducing variability thereby enhancing the quality.  Some of the defects such as imperfect camera of user and films

should also be reciprocated. Films should mention tolerance of imperfection so that any issue arising does not directly blame the quality of the films. Users should also maintain their camera imperfections.

ATTACHMENTS  GROUP_07_SEC_B_data.xls  GROUP_07_SEC_B_Chart

(This is mini tab project)

Group 07 Sec b Case Analysis

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