UNIVERSITY OF MALTA

FACULTY OF ENGINEERING
B.ENG. (HONS) COURSE IN MECHANICAL ENGINEERING
YEAR IV SEMESTER I
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011 SESSION OF EXAMINATIONS

MFE3100 Quality Management & Control 31st January 2011

9.15 11.15hrs

This paper contains Four questions. You are to attempt any Three.

Stationary:

Use of calculators is allowed

List of formulae
Control chart for variable data
Control chart for attribute data

1. An air-conditioning unit manufacturer is in the process of analyzing its operating

costs for the latest product launched on the market. This exercise is being carried out
since the company has had a significant drop in profits over the past years.

The costs for 1,500 products sold to date are detailed in Table 1 below. All the costs
listed are in (x100) . The products are sold at the piece price of 650.

(a) What procedure should the company adopt to run a Cost of Quality Exercise?
(10 marks)

(b) Carry out the Cost of Quality exercise using the costs listed in Table 1 below.
(15 marks)

(c) Make use of the Pareto Analysis tool on the Cost of Quality analysis to decide
which costs you would tackle to increase the companys profit margins.
(8 marks)
Cost Centre Cost (x100)
Manufacturing 650
Supplier monitoring 20
Training 25
Product Replacement 43
Inspection of product 47
Calibration 5
Scrap disposal 38
Product testing 42

Table 1 Costs Incurred

2. A plastics manufacturing company is looking towards increasing its product base by
starting to manufacture biomedical equipment. One of the main requirements in
becoming a supplier in this field is the implementation of the ISO9001:2008 Quality
Management System. As the quality engineer responsible for business processes in
this company you are being asked to investigate the details of ISO9001:2008.

(a) Why would a biomedical equipment supplier be required to have

ISO9001:2008 certification?
(6 marks)

(b) Describe in detail the management responsibilities in setting up and

maintaining a Quality Management System.
(15 marks)

(c) What is the main focus of ISO9001:2008? And what is the difference from the
original ISO9000:1987?
(6 marks)

(d) What role does the PCDA cycle play in the Quality Management System?
(6 marks)
3. A supplier and manufacturer of mobile phone LCD displays has been receiving many
complaints and returns from its customers due to defective displays. For this reason
the company has decided to monitor the situation by carrying out Statistical Process
Control (SPC) at the end of line assembly. Table 2 shows the SPC Data collected for
an 8 hour shift. 50 units were inspected for each sample.

No of No of
Sample Defective Sample Defective
No. Parts per No. Parts per
Sample Sample
1 2 16 2
2 3 17 3
3 1 18 1
4 3 19 2
5 1 20 3
6 1 21 1
7 3 22 2
8 3 23 1
9 2 24 2
10 3 25 4
11 2 26 2
12 3 27 1
13 1 28 6
14 3 29 0
15 1 30 3

Table 2

(a) Describe the steps that should be followed by the process engineers to collect
the data required.
(8 marks)

(b) What benefits does the use of SPC bring to the company?
(6 marks)

(c) What type of SPC chart should be used for this study?
(3 marks)

(d) Plot the SPC Chart using the graph paper provided.
(8 marks)

(e) Analyze the SPC chart plotted, and state your observations.
(8 marks)
4. A company that produces netbooks continually finds high reject rates on the assembly
line. The motherboard assembly station has been identified as being one of the main
contributors to high rejects.

At this assembly station an operator manually loads the motherboard onto the base of
the laptop. An automated Coordinate Measurement Machine (CMM) then measures
the height of the mounted components to ensure that there is no interference with the
rest of the components. The CMM data shows that the height of the mounted CPU is
very often out of specification. The specification on the height is 50.5mm.

The management team is considering the implementation of Quality Circles on the

shop floor to solve this problem.

(a) What is the principle philosophy behind Quality Circles and why in your
opinion have the management team made the decision of introducing this
quality method?
(6 marks)

(b) Describe in detail how four of the Old Quality Tools could be used by the
members of the quality circle to monitor and solve the above stated problem.
(12 marks)

Table 3 below lists the heights of the components for 3 samples measured every hour
for a period of 5 hours. All dimensions in mm.

Time 1 2 3
8.00 5.1 5.5 5.4
9.00 5.3 5.1 5.3
10.00 5.2 4.9 4.7
11.00 4.8 5.3 5.4
12.00 4.8 5.1 4.6

Table 3

(c) Carry out an analysis of this data and determine whether the process is capable
or not. (Assume that the data has a normal distribution and the process is in
control)
(10 marks)

(d) How can the 5S methodology help the company to further implement the
Kaizen philosophy?
(5 marks)