Material quality consistency in a quality control process

The purpose of this case study was to analyze the impact of the material consistency on the performance of chewing gum manufacturing equipment. It was motivated by this researcher's observation that consistency of materials quality was affecting the manufacturing process performance of organizations. Because of this, there was a need to develop a tool to establish new specifications and a better control of suppliers' quality impact. A brief explanation was given in the areas of production process, operation management, material management, quality management, and basic statistics. In order to evaluate material consistency impact on equipment performance, the following statistical tools were used: Correlation Analysis, Two Factorial Design, and Analysis of Variance. The study was done in a manufacturing organization where two specifics wrapping materials were analyzed. From each material, approximately ten characteristics were evaluated against the existing performance indicators. Approximately fifty machinability tests were done per material. It was concluded that there was no significant impact of the consistency of the material characteristics on the existing performance indicators of the machine and that these indicators were so general that they could not significantly reflect the real impact of material characteristics on the process performance. As a result, a Material Consistency Control Model was proposed. Thus, the following was recommended: the use of the Material Consistency Control Model in order to identify an adequate performance indicator that can effectively measure the impact of material consistency on machine execution, to determine the selection of the materials with greater impact on machine performance, to normalize the material consistency in order to certify a material supplier, and to reduce safety stock inventories based on statistical tools and service levels.