Statistical process control in plastic packaging manufacturing: A case study

Manufacturing quality packaging and security handling is a complex working process. A case study was undertaken in a plastic packaging manufacturer. A study is done to identify statistical process control (SPC) techniques for quality improvements that are implemented in the company. To make sure that customers are satisfied with the products´ quality the company has stated some values to attract them. The values are quality assured, loyalty, sincerity, trustworthy, integrity and propriety. It is identified that the quality in the plastic packaging industry is planned, controlled and maintained with very minimal statistical methods which is flow chart, check sheets and control chart for quality assurance. Control chart is only implemented on the finished products. In this paper the use of flow chart and check sheet is presented. Pareto chart and analysis was suggested and applied for defect detection. A Pareto chart can be used to reveal the fundamental parameters that affect the occurrence of a manufacturing process and predict the basic of possible rejects. Five major causes of rejection have been identified and quality improvement techniques have been proposed.