Applying Quality Function Deployment to develop Non-quantitative Specification–A Case Study on a Automatic Transmission Company

Abstract

Taiwan’s automotive industry is facing a severe situation China had been known as the world’s factory because of its low labor costs which attracted international manufacturers to invest in the establishment of factories In less than a few years the world’s factory has gradually become the world’s market After years of learning China has made rapid advances in manufacturing quality techniques Taiwan’s related industries are facing increasing competition The only key to survive is to grasp the needs of customers This study introduces the application of the quality function deployment for the manufacturing process Only when the products are in line with the customers’ needs the risks of customers’ complaints or returns could be reduced In this case study the company in the automotive industry that specializes in manufacturing automatic transmission components dealt with the problem of the automatic gears shift shudder caused by the deformation of the brake band The shudder did not affect safe driving; however the cost of the product defects increased rapidly during the manufacturing process Among all the costs the one caused by the abnormal quality products from the end-users was the highest one until the quality function deployment method was employed by the company to effectively respond to key impact process techniques and proposed improvements via listening to customers and discussing with the cross-functional team and the expert team Furthermore the company brought up the issue of placing the steel band on the high precision granite platform to identify the degree of steel band heat treatment deformation thereby setting the objective of quality control to be less than 0 7mm on the flatness of the thickness gauge and effectively monitoring the difference before and after the improvement The brake bands with heat treatment preheat parameters changed in mid-2019 After customer self-verification and testing no customer complaints have occurred so far

Date of Award	2020
Original language	English
Supervisor	Tai-Yue Wang (Supervisor)