Productivity improvement by reduction of rejections in grid casting using six sigma methodology

Abstract

The core and the heart of the battery industry is Grid. This paper discusses about the quality and productivity improvement by reducing the rejections in Grid casting section in one of the Battery manufacturing Multinational companies. The quality improvement would be attained by sigma methodology’s DMAIC approach. It depicts reducing rejections in Grids from grid casting machine. Data collection and Pareto analysis indicated the high rejections are due to flashes and wire miss. The root causes are found out by six sigma using Variable search tool and validated by Better Vs Current Tool. By the results of DMAIC, Modifications are carried out in grid casting methodology and the process parameters optimized. This resulted in reducing the rejections from 9.5 % to 2.1 % and average improvement of grid caster’s productivity. To confirm whether Six Sigma implementation would be simplified, this paper highlights usage of Shainin DOE instead of Taguchi DOE.