Using Design for Six Sigma to enhance our moulding experience

Over the past few years Plazology have completed a number of DFSS courses to help us become more efficient at mould tool development and validation… applying some neat tools into the mould design and validation helps us to really understand what’s really important to our customers need.. If we really understand the product design we can make better moulds and provide a greater processing window… we ask the questions upfront so we don’t get any surprises after first trials.. Some great tools Plazology have been using to help us really understand our customers products are. Here’s a snapshot… DFMEA and PFMEA Zoom into the part to understand the mould and tooling constraints, what’s good for the customer is not necessary good for the mould tool and process; highlight these concerns early so amendments can be made to the design before mould design. Voice of the Customer Use this method to find out what’s important to the customer when it comes to a mould tool design and processing window, what maybe important to you, May not necessary be important to them… QFD Analysis Use the Quality Function Deployment method to rank these requirements or ‘wants’ against how you will fulfil their requirements, using the QFD method helps us prioritise these and also takes into account the value to us as a business. So if something is a game changer on their wants we want to make sure we spend a lot of time getting this right and not waste our time on matters with little importance.. DOE As in our previous blog, this tool helps us understand how sensitive our selected dimensions are to process change, typically our Key Dimensions derived from the DFMEA, we may have dimensions which are very stable during process and are not influenced by the factors. In this case we can consider these as lower measurable values which can be measured at a reduced number… Consideration must be given to which design you choose, you may want to include many factors at 2 levels, of course the knock on effect is the time it takes and the measuring time, something which we have done in the past is to run a Taguchi style DOE with many factors which then focus in on the real factors having the effect, then run a Full factorial with only the main factors.. be aware though of any missing interactions..!! Develop procedures and methods To help maintain those qualified settings, document the settings in actual data output settings taken from the trials not machine inputs… validate the process by making changes to the process and measure the change and then reapply the qualified settings….note the changes in the part dims/quality…