Reduction of internal defect costs in an automotive company

• Autor(a) principal: Dias, Inês Maria Rodrigues
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10773/39766
• topic: Quality; Lean tools; Internal defect costs; Standardized work

Internal defect costs (IDC) are a major problem for businesses in the automotive industry since they can affect profitability, reputation, and customer satisfaction. These expenses are caused by production-related flaws that may necessitate scrapping, reworking, or warranty claims. The main goal of lean manufacturing is to reduce waste and non-value-added activities that can be seen as the tasks that the customer is unwilling to pay for. For Bosch Car Multimedia, IDC have been noted as a major area for improvement as they have been rising recently, and for that, the main goal of this project consists of the creation and implementation of standardized processes for quality management to reduce internal defect costs. Through an investigation based on the action-research methodology, it was possible to identify the main causes leading to a high value of the material that the company annually rejects. Based on the principles and tools of lean production, with a special focus on standardized work and kata methodology, different improvement proposals were developed, such as stencil alterations, changing of layouts, creation of work instructions and revision of critical parameters of the process. Of the results obtained, it is important to highlight the reduction of 51% in the defects at solder paste printing, the reduction of 33% in the time needed to perform one of the most critical tasks, filling the loader, the reduction of 43% in the number of contaminations and a reduction of 43% in attrition rate (quantity) and 59% in attrition rate (value). Despite the difficulties, the main objectives of this project were achieved: attack the root causes of the IDC by reviewing the critical processes; gain an understanding of the standard work instructions by the operators involved in the process; and create sustainable solutions so that tasks are carried out as efficiently as possible, always complying with all safety regulations.