Research Reports from the Department of Operations
Document Type
Dissertation
Publication Date
8-14-1989
Abstract
A single inspection facility (IF) is capable of multiple inspection tasks. Such IF could be a human inspector or an automated gaging system (e.g. an image analyzer in a machine vision system). In this study we focus on the use of such IF's for detecting 'out-of-control' production stages in multistage production systems. Managing a multi-IF system for this purpose requires three levels of decisions: the capacity (number of IF's needed), the assignment of inspection tasks to each IF, and the inspection schedule of each single IF subsystem. Both economical and quality performance objectives are considered. The study is presented in five main parts: (1) a survey of models for allocating inspection efforts in multistage production systems; (2) defining the single IF inspection schedule problem and solving it using a 'shrunk cyclic schedule'; (3) development and comparison of additional heuristics for this problem, and finding an optimal solution for the two-stage production systems; (4) defining and solving the capacity and assignment problems; (5) relaxation of assumptions including: imperfect inspection, imperfect restoration of 'out-of-control' stage, imperfect production while 'in control', and different production and inspection rates. Finally, future research avenues are discussed.
Keywords
Operations research, Production management, Manufacturing processes--Automation, Quality control, Production scheduling, Heuristic algorithms, Decision making--Mathematical models
Publication Title
Dissertation, Department of Operations, School of Management, Case Western Reserve University
Issue
Technical memorandum no. 678 ; Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
Rights
This work is in the public domain and may be freely downloaded for personal or academic use
Recommended Citation
Rabinowitz, Gad, "Quality Control of Multistage Production Systems" (1989). Research Reports from the Department of Operations. 457.
https://commons.case.edu/wsom-ops-reports/457
