Keeping Quality on Track at Union Carbide
| Published date | 01 April 1990 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/02635579010000840 |
| Pages | 13-15 |
| Date | 01 April 1990 |
| Author | Roger Lavery |
| Subject Matter | Economics,Information & knowledge management,Management science & operations |
Keeping
Quality
on
Track
at
Union Carbide
Roger Lavery
KEEPING QUALITY ON TRACK AT UNION CARBIDE 13
U
nion Carbide found that plans to update
manual recording of data must integrate
easily into existing procedures.
Union Carbide's Coatings Service Facility at Indianapolis
is one of ten US factories specialising in the application
of
thin,
hard and ceramic coatings to precision
parts.
The
parts sent in for coating by Union Carbide's customers
are diverse, ranging from turbine blades to delicate
electronic
components.
No
two jobs are exactly the same,
except in the quality of coating that must be achieved.
With work orders involving thousands of parts being
processed through a variety of stages, keeping track of
all
parts through all stages is potentially an administrative
minefield. But such is the critical nature of the tasks the
coated parts have subsequently to perform, that there is
no margin for error.
Manual Recording Compromised Quality
It was when the cumbersome procedures for manually
recording such data as order number, operation stage
number, work centre number etc. started diverting
employees' effort from the central objectives of achieving
quality and meeting delivery dates that Union Carbide
decided to do something about it.
Union Carbide's main process involves
a
proprietary device
called a detonation
gun,
which blasts thin
layers
of tungsten
carbide, and other hard metals and ceramics, onto the
working surfaces of the parts to be coated (Plate 1). All
processes are computer controlled, including those for
documenting the various stages through the factory.
However,
it
became apparent that something
had to
be done
in order to streamline the manual worksheet procedure.
Union Carbide needed
a
solution that not only solved the
order- and process-tracking problems, but would also
easily integrate into existing computer procedures. A
Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP) system called
MASH (Modular Application System for the HP) was
already in place as a software module within Union
Carbide's Coating Service Management Operating System
(COSMOS), an inventory control and shop-floor costing
and scheduling program implemented a few years earlier.
The computer system utilised is HP3000.
Union Carbide consulted with
a
local
systems supplier who
recommended ShopScan™, the barcode-oriented and
data collection system from Intermec. This system was
completely new to Union Carbide and, with such
a
critical
application, Union Carbide decided on comprehensive
evaluation prior to making any commitment. The
company's main concern was the level of compatibility
between Intermec's ShopScan and Union Carbide's
COSMOS.
It
was
in
1986
that Union Carbide began testing ShopScan
modules for quality, ease of use and compatibility with
COSMOS. The tests were so successful that it was only
a few months before Intermec was invited to participate
in a site survey to determine Union Carbide's
requirements and specifications. As
a
result of
this
survey
a programme of modifications was defined to tailor
ShopScan to Union Carbide's exact
needs.
The flexibility
of ShopScan allowed the modifications to be implemented
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