Evaluating quality-inspection effectiveness and affordability in short run productions

STRUCTURED ABSTRACT Purpose – Illustrating a practical method for supporting the design of quality inspections in short run and single unit manufacturing processes. Design/methodology/approach – Processes are decomposed into a number of steps, which are potentially critical to defect generation. Several parameters concerning effectiveness and cost of the inspections are identified and aggregated into a probabilistic model for representing the process propensity to produce defects. Two indicators related to the effectiveness and cost of inspections are defined and tested through a case study concerning a short run manufacturing process in the automotive industry. Findings – The combined use of the proposed indicators allows to support the selection of the more appropriate inspection procedures, in a simple and practical way. Research limitations/implications – The above indicators and probabilistic model rely on the following simplifying assumptions: (i) possible occurrence of a single defect typology in each step, and (ii) absence of correlation between the parameters related to different steps. Future research will focus on developing more general probabilistic models and identifying practical methods to estimate the relevant parameters. Practical implications – The proposed model and indicators may be applied to a variety of industrial contexts, related to short run and single unit productions. Originality/value – The proposed model and indicators allow to identify the more effective and affordable inspection procedures for short run and single unit productions. Their quantitative connotation represents an important novelty with respect to the classical qualitative approaches. Also, the proposed model and indicators take account of possible inspection errors.