When Customer Specifications for a Product Lie Outside a Product's Material Properties and Process Capability - A Case Study

Authors

  • Robert D Yearout Department of Management & Accountancy, University of North Carolina at Asheville
  • Linda L Nelms Department of Management & Accountancy, University of North Carolina at Asheville
  • Emily A Moe-Carden Manufacturing Quality Engineer, Eaton Corporation: Heavy Duty Transmission Division
  • Michael D Lyda Senior Quality Engineer, ALCAN Medical Flexibles Americas
  • Tonia N.R. Walker Production Engineer, ALCAN Medical Flexibles Americas

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.23055/ijietap.2008.15.2.123

Keywords:

Process capability, HWPT, softening point, conforms to specifications, client, customer, and vendor

Abstract

To avoid losing a $12M client, a vendor addressed complaints that their disposable baby bottle liners failed hot water pressure tests and had widths outside specifications. The prescribed resin’s softening point was (980C (208.40F)). At the vendor’s testing site (580 meters above sea level) water boils at 97.20C (2070F). At the client laboratory (11 meters above sea level) water boils at 99.40C (2110F). Thus liners that met vendor specifications failed at the client’s laboratory. An alternative resin (softening point: 1070C (2230F)) was found to met client specification. A process capability study revealed that the machines were incapable of producing liners to client specifications. Further investigation revealed that the complaints related to problems customers had extracting liners from the package. An out-of-round packaging core provided by another vendor was the cause of uneven extraction. Changing resins and ensuring cores were in-round resulted in meeting the client’s quality concerns.

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Published

2022-02-25

How to Cite

Yearout, R. D., Nelms, L. L., Moe-Carden, E. A., Lyda, M. D., & Walker, T. N. (2022). When Customer Specifications for a Product Lie Outside a Product’s Material Properties and Process Capability - A Case Study. International Journal of Industrial Engineering: Theory, Applications and Practice, 15(2), 220–230. https://doi.org/10.23055/ijietap.2008.15.2.123

Issue

Section

Product Design and Development