Industry Interface Programme

Six Sigma Project on coolant leakage

along with quality excellence group of
VE Commercial Vehicles Limited

SUBMITTED BY - IIP Group 70

2016PGP278 PRANJALI SILIMKR

2016PGP063 ANUBHAV KEDIAA
2016PGP395 SUPRITO BISWAS
2016PGP207 MATHN KUMAR V
2013IPM074 S VISHNU PRIYA
2016PGP154 JAYTI SINGH

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 CONTENTS

S .No. Title Page No.

Acknowledgement 3
1 Introduction 4
2 Project Description 5
3 VE Commercial Vehicles Overview 6
4 Process Description 7
5 Problems faced 7
6 DMAIC Problem-Solving Strategy 8
7 Conclusion 22
8 References 22

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

During the period of the project, several people have played a crucial role in its completion. It is
great pleasure that now we have the opportunity to express our gratitude to all of them.

We take this opportunity to express our heartfelt gratitude and indebtedness to our respected mentor
Prof. N. M. K. Bhatta who constantly encouraged and guided us. His invaluable guidance and
continuous help in every aspect enabled us to complete our project.

We are highly thankful to Mr. R. Prbhakar and the whole staff of VE Commercial Vehicles
Limited for their cooperation and invaluable support.

We are thankful to Dr. Rishikesha T Krishnan, Director, IIM Indore for providing all facility and
infrastructure for our academic programme.

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1. Introduction

Six Sigma is a disciplined, data-driven approach and methodology to help eliminate defects in a
process from manufacturing to transactional, and from product to service.
It basically emerged on the concept of Eighty-five percent of the reasons for failure to meet
customer expectations are related to deficiencies in systems and process rather than the employee.
The role of management is to change the process rather than badgering individuals to do better.
Six Sigma is a combination of metric, benchmark, tool and commitment. Overall it is to manage a
process performance effectively.
It is a metric that demonstrates quality levels at 99.99967 % performance for processes.
It is a benchmark for product and process capability on a quality basis.
It is a practical application of statistical tool to help measure, analyse, improve and control he
processes.
It is a commitment to customers to offer the highest quality, reduced cost products.

Multiple meanings of Sigma:

Management philosophy:
It views processes and measures completely from a customer point of view. It enables continual
improvement and it is an integration of quality and daily work. It satisfies customer needs as a result
of it assures profitability.

Process capability:
It is a statistical measure of a processs ability to meet customer requirements which are called as
Critical to Quality characteristics.
The process sigma means 6s i.e., 3.4 defects per million opportunities.

Standard deviation:
It is basically a measure of variation of characteristics from a reference or preferred measurement.
Its significance is its structured approach to help continuous improvement.

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A small change from 3.8 sigma to 6 sigma will yield quantum amount of benefits.
Six Sigma made the paradigm shift from quality as a result of speed and cost to speed and cost
as a result of quality.

Six Sigma is applied on pain problem areas of the organization for improvements. The following
approaches are followed in this process:
1. DMAIC For existing process
Define: Selection of performance characteristics critical in meeting customer
requirements
Measure: Creation and validation of a measurement system
Analyse: Identification of sources of variation from the performance objectives
Improve: Discovery of process relationships and establishment of new procedures
Control: Monitoring of implemented improvements to maintain gains and help ensure
corrective actions are taken when necessary.
2. DMADV For new process
Define: Initiate, scope and plan the project
Measure: Understand customer needs and specify the CTQs
Analyse: Develop design concepts and high-level design
Design: Develop detailed design and control/test plan
Verify: Test design and implement full-scale processes

2. Project Description

The project aims to reduce leakage of coolant from the radiator hose connecting radiator and
coolant tank, by 80%. This is in support of the companys mission of minimizing customer
complaints for coolant leakage, thereby gaining customer trust and satisfaction.The radiator
assembly consists of the radiator, radiator hose held in place by worm clamps.The coolant is found
leaking around the radiator hose between the clamps. The process of cooling the hot coolant
flowing in the radiator therefore needs to be improved.

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3. VE Commercial Vehicles Limited Overview

Eicher Motors Limited operates its commercial vehicles business under VE Commercial Vehicles
Limited (VECV), a joint venture, with 45.6% shareholding of the Volvo Group. It is a partnership
that brings together Global leadership in technology, quality, safety and environmental care, along
with the deep knowledge and understanding of the Indian Commercial Vehicle (CV) market. In
operation since July 2008, the company includes the complete range of Eicher branded trucks and
buses, VE Powertrain, Eichers components and engineering design services businesses, the sales
and distribution business of Volvo Trucks as well as aftermarket support to Volvo Buses in India.

3.1. The Product Portfolio

VE Commercial Vehicles (VECV) Limited is a 50:50 joint venture between the Volvo Group
(Volvo) and Eicher Motors Limited (EML). Volvo is known for its Technical expertise and brand
name while Eicher brought with it frugal engineering and a strong Indian network. VECV is divided
into five business units:
Eicher Trucks and Buses - The E Series
Volvo Trucks India
Eicher Engineering Components
Eicher Engineering Solutions
VE Powertrain

3.2. VECV Plant Locations

The headquarters are located at New Delhi. There are 3 plants of VECV:

Pithampur Plant
Thane Plant
Dewas Plant

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4. Process Description

4.1. Radiator Assembly at Tata Toyo

The Radiator assembly is prepared by VECV Supplier Tata Toyo. The radiator hose is installed
on Radiator and is fixed by worm type clamp. The clamp is tightened till the clamp torque reaches
6.5 NM. The assembly is tested by supplier before sending it to VECV.

4.2. Radiator Fitment at VECV

The radiator assembly received from Supplier is installed on vehicle assembly. The upper and lower
radiator hoses are installed on engine block. The hot coolant from engine block enters the radiator
through upper radiator hose, the hot coolant is cooled by radiator assembly and this coolant at room
temperature enters engine block. Once the radiator fitment is done, the entire radiator assembly is
tested at VECV.

5. Problem faced

Coolant Leakage During a final vehicle inspection (FVI) of Terra 25 and 40.40 vehicles, coolant
is observed to be leaking from radiator hose which connects the radiator and the coolant tank. This
leakage has been continually increasing from 4.8 DPV to 6.8 DPV. The leakage is found to increase
after prolonged usage by the customer, as drops and droplets of coolant are observed on the radiator
hose, which even leads to the formation of coolant puddles in serious cases. The current leakage of
coolant from the radiator hose is 5.8 DPV as per data collected between 9 th Dec, 2016 and 9 th
Feb, 2017. The project aims to reduce this leakage to 1.16 DPV or lower. The problem needs to be
identified whether on the supplier side (Tata Toyo) or assembly side (VECV).

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6. DMAIC Problem-Solving Strategy

The DMAIC problem-solving strategy is a roadmap that can be utilized for any projects or quality
upgrades needed to be made. The term DMAIC stands for the five fundamental steps in the process:
Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control.

Define It is essential in Six Sigma to characterize and define the issue or project goals. The more
specific the issue is defined the more the possibility of obtaining the measurements and then
successfully completing the project or solving the issue. The definition ought to portray the issue
precisely with numeric portrayal. As a component of the definition stage, the scope of the project,
or issue ought to be defined and additionally the business processes included.

Measure When the project or issue has been defined then there should be decisions made on
additional measurement that is required to quantify the issue.

Analyze Once the measuring stage has defined the additional measurements, the data is then
collected and analyzed. Now, it is conceivable to figure out if the issue is legitimate or whether it is
an irregular occasion that does not have a particular cause that can be revised. The data that has
been collected can be utilized as a base level to compare against measurements after the project has
been completed to gauge the success of the project.

Improve After measurements have been taken and analyzed, then possible solutions can be
developed. Test data can be made and pilot studies launched to find which of the solutions offers
the best improvements to the issue when compared against the original measurements taken. The
team ought to look at the outcomes to guarantee that there are no unexpected results to the selected
solution. At the point when the most appropriate solution is chosen, then the team can develop an
implementation plan and a timeline for the completion of the project.

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Control After the implementation of the solution or project there requires various controls to be
set up with the goal that measurements can be taken to affirm that the solution is still valid and to
prevent recurrence. The control measurements can be planned for particular dates, e.g. monthly,
daily, and yearly, and so forth. The solution should also be properly documented and updated with
any other related process documentations.

6.1. Define Phase

The define phase contains the definition of the problem and is defined with the help of tools like
SIPOC Diagram, Project Charter, CTQ definitions, etc. These tools have been used in this project
and the problem statement has been defined as:
Very high leakage of coolant from radiator hose connecting the coolant tank causing rapid coolant
consumption in the vehicle.
The project charter, containing the timeline for the completion of the project and the scope of the
project can be found below:

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The leakage of the coolant was leading to high amounts of dissatisfaction among the customers and
was eroding the trust that they had in the Eicher brand. Attaining zero coolant was highly critical to
the quality and the process which can be seen from the CTQ table below:

Since the entire radiator cum coolant tank set up was supplied by a proprietary supplier and only the
assembly of the structure was being carried out at the VECV plant, it was important to study the
role of the supplier in the entire process. The SIPOC Diagram explains the entire chain of events
under the scope of the project:

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6.2. Measure Phase

The team was looking to find the main problems causing coolant leakage. Below is a cause
and effect diagram for this process, focused on major possible causes identified by team
(figure 6.2.1).

Figure 6.2.1

Using the Xs identified in the cause & effect diagram above, the team put together an
Cause & Effect matrix (Figure 6.2.2) in an attempt to prioritize the potential Xs that would
cause the coolant leakage. Clamp torque reduction, high coolant pressure and poor quality
radiator hose material were identified by the team as top three potential causes of coolant
leakage.

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 Figure 6.2.2

After determining top three Xs, operational definitions were created for each of three
critical Xs and Data collection plan was prepared(Figure 6.2.3)

Figure 6.2.3

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 On receiving data from suppliers/Supervisors for critical Xs, Verification of the data
normality was done in Minitab with the Anderson-Darling (AD) statistic. The AD test to be
one of the best Empirical distribution function statistics for detecting most departures from
normality, and can be used for n greater or equal to 5. Figure 6.2.5 shows the Anderson-
Darling test results with a p-value of 0.157. Since the p-value was greater than 0.05 (
=0.05), the null hypothesis was not rejected. Therefore, the data was enough to say that the
process variable was normally distributed.

Figure 6.2.5

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 We tried to find out if there are any patterns or trends in the given data by creating run chart
and histogram(Figure 6.2.6), but no significant pattern/trends observed in the data.

Figure 6.2.6
Process capability index Cpk was calculated to evaluate the capability of the existing
process (Figure 6.2.7). The Cpk value of a six sigma process is 1.33. But Cpk value of our
process was -3.33 which indicated that the process was not six sigma process and needed
significant improvement.

Figure 6.2.7

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 We calculated the process sigma value (Figure 6.2.8) based on Upper/Lower specification
limits provided by VECV for clamp torque (i.e. LSL = 6.5 NM and USL = 8 NM). The
process sigma value was -1.5 which indicated that there was a huge variation in the process
relative to customer specification limits.

Figure 6.2.8

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6.3. Analyze Phase

A Pareto Chart was used to check the frequency of clamp torque values

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 VALIDATION OF Xs:

The specification limits lie within 6-8. The Lower control limit is 6 and the upper control
limit is 8. The mean is 7. The before clamp force lies within the control limits but the after
clamp force does not lie within the control limit.

A hypothesis test is a statistical test that is used to determine whether there is enough
evidence in a sample of data to infer that a certain condition is true for the entire population.
A hypothesis test examines two opposing hypotheses about a population: the null hypothesis
and the alternative hypothesis. The one-sample t-test is used to determine whether a sample
comes from a population with a specific mean. With the data received, the clamp torque
before and after, we performed a 1-sample t-test to understand whether clamp torque
measured is same or not same as set at supplier side.
o Type of Hypothesis Test: 1 Sample T-test
o H0: Clamp torque measured at VECV is same as clamp torque set at supplier side
o H1: Clamp torque measured at VECV is NOT same as clamp torque set at supplier
side

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 As p-value < 0.05, we rejected Null Hypothesis and thus concluded that clamp torque
measured at VECV is not same as clamp torque set at supplier side

The objective of shainin DOE tools is to identify what suspect product characteristic or
quality parameter is contributing to the problem. This is generally applicable to know
whether the input material is cause or not. This tools helps to identify which product
characteristic is the reason for the problem based on good (Best of best) and bad (Worst of
worst) units.

We are assuming the following leakage scale:

Leakage scale
1 Minimum
3 Moderate
5 High

We measured the Best of Best and Worst of Worst values initially, then disassembled and
reassembled the components and measured them again. This was done twice.

Best of Best Worst of Worst

Initial value 1 5
1st disassembly and reassembly 1 4
2nd disassembly and reassembly 2 5

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 Component search is applied to know whether the problem is related to assembly process or
component. If component is problem, then to determine which component is creating the
problem.
o Test of Significance: D/d >= 3 then component is a cause, assembly process is not a
cause
o D(difference between median)/d(Average of range) = 4/1 = 4
o Therefore, the component was the cause

The following are the components:

Component A Worm Clamp

Component B EPDM Hose
Component C Metal Pipe

Assuming a specification limit of leakage <=2 :

R
e
s
u
l
t

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 The results of good assembly and bad assembly have been drawn in the graph above. This
shows the complete reversal of part A while the other two remain same. The decision
(conclusion) has been written in the table below.

Good
assembly Result Bad assembly Result Decision
AbRg 5 AbRg 1 Complete reversal, part is suspect
BbRg 2 BbRg 4 Good remains good, Bad remains bad
Cb Rg 2 Cb Rg 4 Good remains good, Bad remains bad

INFERENCE:
Since Best of Best and Worst of Worst are completely reversed, Part A is the component creating
the problem.

6.4. Improve Phase:

After analyzed all the data, the following would be feasible solution for the coolant leakage.

X validated Possible solution

Change type of clamp from Worm to SLTB

Clamp Torque Change type of clamp from Worm to TB

Continue with Worm clamp but tighten even
more than 6.5 Nm

Comparing the three possible solutions:

Changing the type of clamp from Worm to T Bolt may still create the gap in the rubber hose. When
we enquired about the TB clamp, we were informed that no matter how strong we clamp the rubber
hose, after some time the TB clamp will loosen and create the gap in the rubber hose.

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Continuing with the Worm clamp with tightening of more than 6.5 Nm may damage the rubber
hose because during the contraction of the hose, due to change in temperature of the coolant, the
force exerted by the clamp can create a huge gap causing leakage.

Thus, by keeping the above mentioned factors in mind, the first solution of Changing the type of
Clamp from Worm to SLTB would be feasible.

Analysis of Spring Loaded T Bolt Band Clamps:

It is suitable for hose assemblies where high fluctuations are possible and provides constant band
tension during hose line expansion or contraction due to high pressure or temperature.

The clamps with 300 series stainless steel bands and trunnions will provide high strength and
corrosion resistance and solid bands prevent hose extrusion and the presence of rounded band edge
protects soft hose materials.

The presence of low amount of installation torque results in high band tensions which is the solely
responsible for the desired clamping force.

Effects of adding Spring Loaded Clamp in the coolant tank hose assembly
During long haul drives, the engine generates huge amount of heat. Due to this, the rubber hose
which connects the coolant tank starts to expand. This results in the creation of a gap at rubber hose
joint and thus the seepage.

When the rubbers hoses are joined with spring clamps, the clamps automatically adjust during the
expansion and contraction of rubber hoses due to high heat and pressure from coolant.

Hence the possibility of gap creation and seepage are completely eliminated.

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7. Conclusion

In order to reduce the leakage of the coolant, a decision has been made to replace the worm clamps
with SLTB clamps. The properties of the SLTB clamps are more suitable for usage in the current
system.
The worm clamp has a tendency to roll back after being tightened. This leads to the loosening of the
clamp after some time and thus allowing leakage. To compensate for the roll back, the clamp could
be tightened further but that may lead to the cutting of the hose. We thus consider SLTB clamps
which have a spring to ensure that the required clamping torque is maintained throughout the life of
the clamp.

Though this solution promises to resolve the coolant leakage problem, the proposal is under-going a
cost analysis, required to account for the expenses due to redesigning and for using a more
expensive clamp. The design and assembly of the radiator system is done by a proprietary supplier
and thus VECV cannot take immediate action on this. They instead have to wait for about 3-4
months for the final verdict and implementation decision whether or not to redesign the system
using SLTB clamps.

8. References

Lean Sigma: a practitioner's guide by Ian D. Wedghood

http://support.minitab.com/en-us/minitab/17/
http://www.vecv.in/
https://www.isixsigma.com/
https://www.yourmechanic.com/article/how-to-replace-a-coolant-reservoir-by-timothy-
charlet
http://www.clampco.com/products/t-bolt-spring.asp

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