ADAPTIVE CAPABILITY ASSESSMENT OF A PROCESS IN CABLE MANUFACTURING: A CASE STUDY

Abstract

This paper took a conceptual and exploratory direction to discuss the Process Capability (PC) theme.
The literal exploration was concisely taken to adequately capture capability index relationships and
their rich practical benefits. The case study assessment was undertaken in a cable manufacturing
company located in the Southeast Nigeria to solve industry specific problem. The critical-to-quality
characteristic considered in this study is Cable uniformity, and the study quest was developed based
on the organization’s efforts to maintain process consistency, reduce process loss and improve process
yield. The results from the capability assessments before and after the process improvement were used
to ascertain the quality level of a specific extruding unit in the case organization. The process stability
was steadily maintained in the study through proper identification and careful removal of all the
assignable causes of variations in the process. A new engineering tolerance (T±0.032) was derived,
and the engineering specification were carefully tightened in such a way that a six sigma process can
easily be captured. The quality achievement at the project termination stage depict a peak increment
in Sigma level of the process from 0.6 baseline value to 5.2, thus reducing Defects Per Million
Opportunities (DPMO) from the 810,000 to 10.