Riddhi Naik, Manufacturing Intern, Spartanburg

Analysis of

Return Material Authorization (RMA) defects

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Agenda

DEFINE: Project Necessity, Key Goals, RMA Flowchart, Defect Areas

MEASURE: RMA defects

ANALYZE: Design Changes, Operator Analysis, Observations

IMPROVE: Recommendations

CONTROL: Chart

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Project Necessity… On an average 1000 ‘shipment returns’ or ‘undeliverables’ called Return

Material Authorization (RMA) are returned to the Spartanburg facility each week

The receivers are still in their original shrink wrap These units have not been opened from the package (and hence they should

be supposedly good) & be ready to be sent right back out to another customer.

However, presently a 5% defect rate is observed on these receivers Initially RMA’s were not checked for defects and sent right back to the

customer but were found to be defective RMA audits carried out by Quality Control (QC) operators were then

started from week 8 of 2014 so that defective receivers were not sent out Evaluating the nature of these defects and recommending a course of action

to improve product quality is necessary to eliminate the defective receivers and reduce the time and money spent on remanufacturing these RMA’s

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Key Goals

Analyze returned defect rate Identify root cause areas, particularly ‘loose parts’ Identify contributions from production, QC, post-production

handling, shipping and returns Recommend areas for improvement Assist warehouse, packout, and inventory control teams in

data analysis and process flow tasks

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RMA Process Flowchart

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Possible Defect Areas

Material Handling Rough handling and improper placement while unloading from trucks onto the conveyor

belt can lead to receivers to fall off Operators at Receiving rough handle the delicate electronic receivers

Production Process Rough handling at pre-inspection, while placing receivers on ‘trees’ and the Final Finish

Automation (FFA) box. Hard drive (HDD) swap leads to loose parts Material Review Board (MRB) unable to clean infestation completely Cosmetics can miss loose parts as they tend to get stuck A lot of material handling at every stage of the process for IPK can

damage the bezel Placing on carts Improper placing receivers on the Shanklin Rough handling at Packout while putting on endcaps and placing in the box can damage

the receivers

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RMA defects so far for 2014…

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week

% defective

QC outputs have improved

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Pareto chart for defects

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625 the most defective model

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Main Defects Loose Parts

HDD screws Vibration causes screws to come off the HDD Longer screws can be used to hold onto the HDD Maintenance of equipment is necessary Some HDDs don’t need a swap but is done since it is a process

Bezel clips Clips break quite often the bezel Redesign the bezel and make it sturdy especially

for model 625 Tuner can lids come off often

Conductive in nature Can cause functional defects

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Conductivity of loose parts

The loose parts are either conductive or nonconductive Nonconductive loose parts do not damage the receivers

– Should they be considered defects or ‘process indicators’?

– Customer will find the receiver to be defective if a loose part is heard irrespective of it’s conductivity

Conductive loose parts can damage the functioning of the receivers

Loose parts need to be eliminated in general as they are the cause behind the most defects in RMA’s

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Main Defects

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Infestation Improper cleaning in the production process can lead to residue of infestation in the receiver

Exposed metal Rough handling causes exposed metal

Foreign Material Cosmetics can miss certain materials Packaging dust often gets collected which is considered to be foreign material

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Button Inoperable

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146 receivers are button inoperable of 818 211k RMAs so far making 17.85% of 211k’s button inoperable

Models

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Design Changes for Button Inoperable The system info button is inoperable in most of the

button inoperable defects Button cluster slides and rests on top of the chassis tab Vibration can be a major reason for the button to slide

and is observed to occur the most while shipping Other buttons like up, down, select and power buttons

are inoperable rarely Design changes are currently being considered to

reduce the length of the system info button so that sliding can be avoided

322’s also have a few power buttons that are inoperable as they tend to shift right/left on chassis tab when clicked

Changes can be made to the positioning of the power button such that its movement is restricted

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QC Operators

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Operators Shifts

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Observations

Operator variability exists Operators fail to detect defects at QC and may consider the

same receiver as defective when they come in at RMA Time spent by operator inspecting the receiver is usually less

compared to the ideal time which is 1 minute comprising of inspection and material handling

Time studies show that less time spent to inspect, leads to missed defects.

Material handling better at QC compared to production

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Videos

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Data Entry- Database Operators tend to not enter data right the first time causing

wrong information regarding defects Data entered twice or sometimes not entered at all for certain

defects Caid no. or Serial no. entered in place of defect name Non defects considered defects by some operators Should be able to enter more than 1 defect for the same receiver Same defect entered/spelled differently leading to inaccurate

data Data needs to be consolidated and more than one defect should

be allowed to enter for a receiver Being critical over defects can also increase them and give

inaccurate data Fail rate of operator depends on model volume (more 211k

inspected, more defects for that operator) Sequence of events followed currently are different than the

ones in Agile. Can lead to different inspection methods used by operators

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Improve Standardize work methods for Inspection Retrain the operators and make COS and PI certification

mandatory Reduce rotating so many operators through the operations to

maintain consistency Changes made in the RMA database. Operator can choose from

defects provided, making it convenient and also accurate All operators in the facility should be monitored for material

handling by supervisors. Make sure receivers are handled delicately

Reductions in defects can be made if emphasis is made on quality and not solely on quantity

Soft padding at all possible damage areas to be provided and changed whenever worn out

Maintenance of equipments is necessary Update data and documents Feedback from customer regarding receivers can help to find

more defects

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Recommendation

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RMA’s made able to be assigned a pallet Pallet data will not occur as it did in the past QC can then position the RMA in the QC area. RMA operator can use QC pallets RMA space available for other processes

QCRMA

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Improve

In house repair cost of a receiver is $31.20 (until 2011) For the 1410 defective RMA’s so far we have spent $43,992 Money spent can be greatly reduced if the major defects are

eliminated Receivers that come in within a week of being shipped out can

be repaired just for the defect instead of making it go through the 45 hour process costing money & time (eg. Missing door)

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Control

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Company Objectives Met

Improving product quality will have a direct contribution to several of our company objectives

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Questions?

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Thank You!