The Improvement Research Of Scratching Through Glass Processing In TPK Glass Company Limited

With the advent of Apple’s iPhone&iPad, the globe blowing whirlwind of aprojected capacitive touch technology usage, is being applied from the portableconsumer electronic products (Main products for smart phones and tablet personalcomputer) to household appliances and cars installation. The touch panel modulesurface cover applied by the glass surface (also known as the surface of the glass,cover-lens, cover-glass) is one of the crucial steps. The important function ofcover-glass is the anti-oil, fingerprints and scratch resistant. According to a variety ofterminal-use demand, it uses different process of optical glass processes, such ascutting, milling, drilling, polishing, thinning, Chemical enhancement, silk screenprinting, laser and coating. The completion of the process is to go through more thana dozen steps on glass shaping, structure and strength, and the process requiresconsiderable precision with different requirements. Due to the particularity of glassprocessing and stringent process requirement, the average yield of glass is not high(mostly between60%and70%, more than80%is the highest). This is mainly causedby the human or non-human surface defects in the processing of cover-glass. One ofthe main defects is surface scratches, which must be improved urgently. The yieldrate has affected the orders of clients seriously. Besides, the great increases of client’sorder quantities make the manufacturing factory face the bottleneck of productioncapacity. Considering all of these factors, we must improve the yield rate of theproducts within a short period (especially the unfavorable situation of scratches) andthus improve the status of delivery.This paper based on the thorough study of PDCA cycle theory, which used byScratch Task Force Improvement Team, and current situation of TPK glass processinganalysis to identify possible factor and problems, and summarized them. By using themethods of five whys,5W1H and quality control seven gimmick etc. We investigateand determine the root cause, and focus on the need to improve the process. Througha series of process validation, governance tools protective measures, the improvement of personnel and other conscious measures to effectively reduce scratching adverseproportion, so that quality of the entire production process has been greatly improvedand the entire process scratch reduced from37%to15%, the overall yield from50%to over75%. In the visible aspects, the proportion of scratched products was reducedgreatly, and the quality of products in the whole process of TPK glass production wasthen improved (the proportion of scratched products decreased from37%to about15%after the improvement (by22%); the overall yield rate increased from50%toabove75%(by more than25%);), which could reduce the inputs of factory building,machinery equipment, the raw materials for the production (the main materials arepolishing powder, cutting fluid, screen printing, printing ink, and coating materials,etc., of which the costs account for about70%of the total costs of the products), andthe costs of auxiliary materials and labor by about30%. It reduced the costs forproducing every piece of products by30%, improved the complete status forrequirements of the shipment (the complete status for requirements of the shipmentafter November2012was98%), improved the company’s operation condition, andenhanced the competitiveness and the dominant position of the company in theindustry. In the invisible aspects, these series of improvement measures in the processhad been written into the SOP (Standard Operation Procedure), which could form aform perfect improvement system, to improve the culture and to create lastingbenefits by improvement. Also it could significantly improve the degree of teamworkcooperation in the internal departments. The implementation rate of standard workreached up to more than90%, and team members could consciously form the habitsof immediate action, improvement and feedback after the finding of problems; at thesame time, it also developed work styles of effective execution for orders and keepingtracking, efficiently improved the team fighting capacity, and improved the teamcooperation consciousness and work performance to create lasting improvementbenefits for the company.