Manufacturing system design to improve quality buy rate: An automotive paint shop application study

Manufacturing system design has an impact on product quality. In this paper, we investigate this impact through an application study at an automotive paint shop. Specifically, for repair and rework systems in paint operations, we develop a model to quantify paint quality [in terms of quality buy rate (QBR)] as a function of repair capacity. We show that the QBR can be improved and unnecessary repaints can be reduced by increasing the repair capacity. Note to Practitioners-Manufacturing system design and quality management are important in many manufacturing industries. Although they have attracted substantial research effort, little attention has been paid to address the coupling or interactions between system design and product quality. Empirical evidence and analytical studies have shown that manufacturing system design does impact quality. In this paper, through an application study at a repair and rework system in an automotive paint shop, we show that paint quality, as measured by the quality buy rate, can be improved by designing the system more effectively. Similar problems are also often encountered in other manufacturing systems. Results obtained in this work, along with other results, demonstrate both the theoretical and practical importance of the analysis of manufacturing system design on product quality, and suggest a largely unexplored, but promising research area.