Realizing sustainable process improvement through an understanding of machine–material interaction: part 1 – a methodology for audit, investigation, and improvement

Abstract

In striving to become world class, manufacturing organizations employ an array of tools and methods to support improvement programmes to increase quality, efficiency, flexibility, and ultimately reduce unit cost and increase capability. However, many of these programmes are destined to fail at the outset, either in part or in full, due to a lack of holistic and fundamental understanding of the production system, its constituent processes, raw materials, and the product. In addition to this deficiency in understanding, there is further frustration caused by a lack of tools and methods that support the generation of such understanding. To address this critical gap, a methodology has been created to support the practitioner in investigating a processing system and what are referred to as machinematerial interactions (MMIs). These interactions ultimately relate to the function of the processing system, and it is the complete and fundamental understanding of these interactions that is necessary to successfully apply improvement tools and approaches to deliver targeted and sustainable benefits. This article is the first of two parts which together present the development of the MMI methodology, its practical application to a complex industrial case, and its relationship to the range of manufacturing improvement tools and methods available, such as TQM, RCM, Lean, and Six Sigma. In this article, the development of the methodology is discussed in detail including the key stages of auditing, investigation and improvement. This article concludes with a discussion of the relationships between the knowledge generated by the methodology and the fundamental understanding required for process improvement.

An Empirical Investigation into the Influence of Sealing Crimp Geometry and Process Settings on the Seal Integrity of Traditional and Biopolymer Packaging Materials

“…Details of these films are given in Table . As with any machine–material interaction scenario, it is important that all factors, which might serve in the sealability of the respective films, be measured and controlled. Previous studies have shown that the bending stiffness and the coefficient of friction (CoF; crimp material against film) have effects where forming and crimping take place.…”

Realizing sustainable process improvement through an understanding of machine–material interaction: part 2 – an industrial case study

“…The reasons for this have been previously reported (Hicks and Matthews [11]) and a lack of fundamental understanding of the system and what are referred to as MMIs identified as the underlying cause. To address this gap, a supportive methodology has been created and reported in detail (Hicks and Matthews [12]). The methodology provides a structured approach to the auditing, investigation, and improvement of MMIs and adopts a functional perspective enabling a formalization of interdisciplinary knowledge, including product, machine, process, and materials.…”

“…The four stages include the logical decomposition of the production process/ system into operations; the characterization of machine-material functions (MMFs); the decomposition of MMFs into individual MMIs; and the investigation (mapping) of each MMI through R-I diagrams [11]. The rationale of the eight steps is discussed in detail in [12] and the undertaking of the eight steps for the industrial case is now described.…”

“…These knowledge requirements are summarized in Fig. 14 (taken from Hicks and Matthews [12]) and show how the outputs from the MMI study can underpin many common areas of manufacturing improvement, including practice-, process-, and design-led. In particular, Fig.…”

“…Hence, there is a need for a structured approach to support an investigation to underpin and enable continuous and sustainable process improvement, within the context of today's changing business and product environment. In order to address these challenges, a supportive methodology has been created and its development is reported in detail in Part 1 [12] of these two papers. The methodology is depicted in Fig.…”