Extracts from this document...

Introduction

PROCESS CONTROL AT POLAROID (A) SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS Project Greenlight: Polaroid's R2 factory at Waltham, Massachusetts manufactures integral film. Project Greenlight, an initiative to make quality control process more effective, has been introduced at the R2 building of Polaroid during the first six months of 1985. The Project aims to reduce quality-monitoring costs while maintaining or even improving upon the present level of product quality. The conceptualizers of the Project, George Murray and Joe O Leary, hoped to devise a method to make quality control process more effective, beyond merely reducing the number of samples taken. Project Greenlight had three key elements. * Statistical process control principles would be adopted: processes in control and capable of producing within specifications would produce more consistent quality. * Production operators would be given the process control tools that the process-engineering technicians had been using and, in conjunction with sampling, would be expected to make disposition decisions themselves. * Quality control auditors would concentrate on training operators and operationalizing specifications on new products. Project Greenlight is an effort to shift the film production plant from a traditional Quality Control inspection mentality to a worker based process control mentality. Responsibility for quality control was now placed more with the production operators and less with the QC auditors. The idea was to standardize processes so that the defects could be identified at the nascent stage, i.e. ...read more.

Middle

This points out that the process is not under control. One reason why we think the operators have correctly admitted the uncontrollability of the process is that the defects that arise out of this process (Form feed failure & Double feed) are easily detectable by the sophisticated cameras used by the auditors. Another reason why we think the Pod Production process cannot be in control is that out of 74 defects sampled randomly, 10 are from that process (14%) while 17 are due to the finger production process (21%). The difference in these two proportions is statistically insignificant (0.05% significance level) while we expect a process under control to have significantly lower number of defects. Appendix 1: Sample data for Pod Production process Range bar 0.064 X-bar(obs) 2.802 X-bar(act) 2.8 A2 0.48 LCL 2.769 UCL-r 0.128 UCL 2.831 LCL-r 0 Date Sample 1 2 3 4 5 6 Mean Range Shift 3-Aug A 2.8 2.799 2.76 2.802 2.805 2.803 2.795 0.045 B 2.75 2.82 2.85 2.74 2.85 2.79 2.800 0.110 C 2.768 2.807 2.807 2.804 2.804 2.803 2.799 0.039 4-Aug A 2.841 2.802 2.802 2.806 2.807 2.807 2.811 0.039 B 2.801 2.77 2.833 2.77 2.84 2.741 2.793 0.099 C 2.778 2.807 2.804 2.804 2.803 2.804 2.800 0.029 5-Aug A 2.76 2.804 2.804 2.806 2.805 2.806 2.798 0.046 B 2.829 2.804 2.805 2.806 2.807 2.807 2.810 0.025 C 2.741 2.85 2.744 2.766 2.767 2.808 2.779 0.109 6-Aug A 2.814 2.804 2.803 2.805 2.807 2.804 2.806 0.011 B 2.787 2.802 ...read more.

Conclusion

2.07 2.22 2.140 0.180 C 2.01 1.9 1.9 1.81 2.06 1.89 1.928 0.250 12-Aug A 2.08 2.19 2.28 2.29 2.21 2.45 2.250 0.370 B 1.93 2.09 1.9 1.95 2.04 2.09 2.000 0.190 C 1.84 2.12 1.9 1.89 2.01 1.75 1.918 0.370 13-Aug A 2.23 2.01 2.25 2.11 2.39 2.15 2.190 0.380 B 2.1 2.22 2.18 2.15 2.23 2.04 2.153 0.190 C 1.96 2.05 2.16 1.87 2.13 1.9 2.012 0.290 Date Sample 1 2 3 4 5 6 Mean Range Shift 14-Aug A 2.27 2 2.06 1.97 2.13 2.05 2.080 0.300 B 1.92 1.78 1.76 1.77 1.78 1.87 1.813 0.160 C 1.78 1.65 2.04 1.63 1.75 1.83 1.780 0.410 17-Aug A 2.31 2.35 2.25 1.99 2.27 2.11 2.213 0.360 B 2.02 1.97 1.81 1.73 1.77 1.82 1.853 0.290 C 1.76 1.91 2.01 1.85 1.78 1.64 1.825 0.370 18-Aug A 2.06 2.14 1.91 2.06 2.08 2.09 2.057 0.230 B 1.76 1.83 1.79 1.79 1.77 1.94 1.813 0.180 C 2.25 1.88 2.11 2.18 2.02 1.86 2.050 0.390 19-Aug A 2.28 2.15 2.17 2.18 2.44 2 2.203 0.440 B 2.31 2.27 2.16 2.1 2.24 2.28 2.227 0.210 C 1.87 1.89 2.03 1.65 1.75 2.04 1.872 0.390 20-Aug A 2.16 2.38 2.2 2.25 1.98 2.23 2.200 0.400 B 2.06 2.08 2.14 2.24 2.26 2.18 2.160 0.200 C 1.8 1.71 1.65 1.68 1.96 2.05 1.808 0.400 21-Aug A 1.75 2 2.04 2 2.15 2.06 2.000 0.400 B 1.9 1.9 1.81 1.86 1.98 1.81 1.877 0.170 C 1.8 2.01 1.73 1.89 2.01 1.91 1.892 0.280 ...read more.

This student written piece of work is one of many that can be found in our University Degree Microeconomics section.