Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) were founded to improve the activity and effectiveness of small industries, to provide economic and social needs of the country, to increase the competitive level of the country, and to establish integration in the industry. In today&rsquo / s competition conditions, SMEs should continuously improve themselves / otherwise, they could lose their market shares. One of the major problems encountered in Turkish SMEs is poor quality activities / especially, not being able to exploit the Statistical Process Control (SPC) techniques. Production runs become shorter and shorter, and the product variety seems to be ever increasing, which cause short production runs. Using traditional control charts for short production runs can yield wrong and costly results. Instead of traditional control charts, short run charts such as Difference Charts (DNOM), Zed Charts, and Zed-Star Charts should be preferred.For this purpose, software that not only constructs short run control charts but also implements charts by tests to solve the problems of SMEs is developed. A Control Chart Selection Wizard, which is capable of emulating human expertise in finding a suitable control chart according to the user response for different cases is developed and added as a subprogram. Software was tested at Ar&ccedil / elik Dishwasher Plant in Ankara. The overall evaluation of the developed software, as regards the user, was satisfactory. The software can meet some requirements of the SMEs.

It is a difficult challenge to develop a feedback control system for Statistical Process Control (SPC) because there is no effective method that can be used to calculate the accurate magnitude of feedback control actions in traditional SPC. Suitable feedback adjustments are generated from the experiences of process engineers. This drawback means that the SPC technique can not be directly applied in an automatic system. This thesis is concerned with Fuzzy Sets and Fuzzy Logic applied to the uncertainty of relationships between the SPC (early stage) alarms and SPC implementation. Based on a number of experiments of the frequency distribution for shifts of abnormal process averages and human subjective decision, a Fuzzy-SPC control system is developed to generate the magnitude of feedback control actions using fuzzy inference. A simulation study which is written in C++ is designed to implement a Fuzzy-SPC controller with satisfactory results. To further reduce the control errors, a NeuroFuzzy network is employed to build NNFuzzy- SPC system in MATLAB. The advantage of the leaning capability of Neural Networks is used to optimise the parameters of the Fuzzy- X and Fuzzy-J? controllers in order to obtain the ideal consequent membership functions to adapt to the randomness of various processes. Simulation results show that the NN-Fuzzy-SPC control system has high control accuracy and stable repeatability. To further improve the practicability of a NN-Fuzzy-SPC system, a combined forecaster with EWMA chart and digital filter is designed to reduce the NN-Fuzzy-SPC control delay. For the EWMA chart, the smoothing constant 0 is investigated by a number of experiments and optimised in the forecast process. The Finite Impulse Response (FIR) lowpass filter is designed to smooth the input data (signal) fluctuations in order to reduce the forecast errors. An improved NN-Fuzzy-SPC control system which shows high control accuracy and short control delay can be applied in both automatic control and online quality control.

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With the globalization era, software companies around the world not only have to face competition in the domestic industry, as well as the subsequent challenge of large international companies. For this reason, domestic software companies must to upgrade their own software quality. Domestic government agencies and non-governmental units together promote Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI). Hope to improve their quality of software development process through internationalized professional evaluation. Towards the high-maturity software development process, software development process should be estimated quantitatively in CMMI Level 4. There are frequently used statistical process control (SPC) methods, including control charts, fishbone diagram, pareto charts ... and other related practices. Its goal is to maintain stability of overall software development process, so the output performance can be expected. Primitive SPC applied in manufacturing industry, successfully improving the quality of their products. But some characteristics of software, such as software development is human-intensive and innovative activities. It increases not only variability of control, but also difficulties of implementation. In this study, collate and analyze the operational framework of SPC and CMMI Level 4 through study of literature and case study with the case company-A company's practices. It contains two points, one is organization point of view, the other is methodological point of view. Organizational point of view includes stage of CMMI Level 4 and SPC implemented in the software industry, as well as how to design the organizational structure. Methodological point of view includes the steps to run SPC¡Buseful methods and tools. Methodological point of view also uses control theory to collate relevant control mechanisms. Finally, we illustrate how to integrate SPC into the company's system development life cycle. The framework can provide a reference for domestic software companies of longing for implementing CMMI Level 4 and SPC.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:31:02Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2009-03-20Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T19:19:56Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 reis_gn_dr_jabo.pdf: 1600656 bytes, checksum: 5d8e2f8ad0d23ebd51fa7b2f7e033fb8 (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / A colheita mecanizada da cana-de-açúcar tem relevância em todo o processo produtivo da cultura, inclusive na qualidade do produto final entregue para o processamento na usina. O presente trabalho teve por objetivo avaliar a qualidade do processo de colheita mecanizada de cana-de-açúcar crua, utilizando o controle estatístico do processo (CEP), e a capacidade do processo gerar resultados dentro dos limites especificados, por meio da análise de capabilidade, quantificando as perdas e os danos causados às soqueiras pelo mecanismo de corte basal. O experimento foi conduzido em área de ARGISSOLO Amarelo, localizada no município de Arez – RN, sob dois tipos manejos do solo, no sistema convencional de preparo. Os tratamentos foram: AR+GM (arado de aivecas + grade média); GP+GM (grade pesada + grade média) e as perdas determinadas por meio de amostragem. Os atributos do tipo rebolo repicado, toco e totais diferiram estatisticamente entre os tratamentos estudados, sendo os maiores valores de perdas quantificados para o tratamento que utilizou o arado de aivecas seguido de grade média. O processo de colheita apresenta-se fora de controle para os atributos do tipo rebolo repicado, cana inteira, cana-ponta, pedaço fixo, pedaço solto, lasca e estilhaço. O tratamento arado de aivecas seguido de grade média apresenta maiores graus de danos ocasionados às soqueiras, comparado ao tratamento (GP+GM). O tratamento (AR+GM) apresenta maior área de microrrelevo, diferindo estatisticamente do tratamento preparado com grade pesada seguida de grade média. / The mechanized harvest of sugar cane is relevant to the whole productive process of the crop, including the quality of the final product that is delivered for processing at the plant. The objective of this study is to evaluate the quality of the process of the mechanized harvest of raw sugar cane by means of statistical process control, and also the capacity of the process to generate results within the specified limits through the analysis of capability, quantifying the losses and damages caused to the stalks (ratoon) by the mechanism of the cutting base. The experiment was conducted in an area of yellow clay soil located in the municipal of Arez, RN, Brazil, using two methods of managing the soil within the conventional system of preparation. The treatments were: (a) moldboard ploughs followed by average weight offset disc harrow and; (b) heavy offset disc harrow followed by average weight offset disc harrow, with the losses being determined through samples. The losses attributed to splinted stalks, pieces and stubble total differed statistically between the treatments studied, being that the highest values of quantified losses came from the treatment using moldboard ploughs followed by average weight offset disc harrow. The harvesting process proved unmanageable due to splinted stalks, whole cane, cane points, fixed pieces, loose pieces and splinters. The treatment using moldboard ploughs followed by average weight offset disc harrow presented the highest degree of damage to the stalks when compared to treatment (b). The treatment (a) presented the largest area of microrelief, differing statistically from the treatment using heavy offset disc harrow followed by average weight offset disc harrow.

Statistical process control (SPC) is a toolbox to detect changes in the output of a process distribution. It can serve as a valuable resource to maintain high quality in a manufacturing process. This report is based on the work on evaluating and implementing methods for SPC in the process of chromatography instrument manufacturing at GE Healthcare, Umeå. To handle low volume and non-normally distributed process output data, non-parametric methods are considered. Eight control charts, three for for Phase I analysis, and five for Phase II analysis, are evaluated in this study. The usability of the charts are assessed based on ease of interpretation and the performance to detect distributional changes. The later is evaluated with simulations. The result of the project is the implementation of the RS/P-chart, suggested by Capizzi et al (2013), for Phase I analysis. Of the considered Phase I methods (and simulation scenarios), the RS/P-chart has the highest overall probability, of detecting a variety of distributional changes. Further, the RS/P-chart is easily interpreted, facilitating the analysis. For Phase II analysis, the use of two control charts, one based on the Mann-Whitney U statistic, suggested by Chakraborti et al (2008), and one on the Mood test statistic for dispersion, suggested by Ghute et al (2014), have been implemented. These are chosen mainly based on the ease of interpretation. To reduce the detection time for changes in the process distribution, the change-point chart based on the Cramer Von Mises statistic, suggested by Ross et al (2012), could be used instead. Using single observations, instead of larger samples, this chart is updated more frequently. However, this efficiently increases the false alarm rate and the chart is also considered much more difficult to interpret for the SPC practitioner. / Statistisk processkontroll (SPC) är en samling verktyg för att upptäcka förändringar, i fördelningen, hos utfallen i en process. Det kan fungera som en värdefull resurs för att upprätthålla en hög kvalitet i en tillverkningsprocess. Denna rapport är baserad på arbetet med att utvärdera och implementera metoder för SPC i en monteringsprocess av kromatografiinstrument på GE Healthcare, Umeå. Åtta styrdiagram, tre för för fas I analys, och fem för fas II analys, studeras i denna rapport. Användbarheten hos styrdiagrammen bedöms efter hur enkla de är att tolka och förmågan att upptäcka fördelningsförändringar. Den senare utvärderas med simuleringar. Resultatet av projektet är införandet av RS/P-metod, utvecklad av Capizzi et al (2013), för analysen i fas I. Av de utvärderade metoderna, (och simuleringsscenarier), har RS/P-diagrammet den högsta övergripande sannolikheten, för att upptäcka en mängd olika fördelningsförändringar. Vidare är metodens grafiska diagram lätt att tolka, vilket underlättar analysen. För fas II analys, har två styrdiagram, ett baserat på Mann-Whitney's U teststatistika, som föreslagits av Chakraborti et al (2008), och ett på Mood's teststatistika för spridning, som föreslagits av Ghute et al (2014), implementerats. Styrkan i dessa styrdiagram ligger främst i dess enkla tolkning. För snabbare identifiering av processförändringar kan styrdiagrammet baserat på Cramer von Mises teststatistika, som föreslagits av Ross et al (2012), användas. Baserat på enskilda observationer, istället för stickprov, har styrdiagrammet en högre uppdateringsfrekvens. Detta leder dock till ett ökat antal falska larm och styrdiagrammet anses dessutom vara avsevärt mycket svårare att tolka för SPC-utövaren.

Submitted by Izabel Franco (izabel-franco@ufscar.br) on 2016-09-27T12:12:33Z No. of bitstreams: 1 TeseFRS.pdf: 2872518 bytes, checksum: 745bb6d4d22ecbb4788958d4ee45dd45 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Marina Freitas (marinapf@ufscar.br) on 2016-09-27T19:43:43Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 TeseFRS.pdf: 2872518 bytes, checksum: 745bb6d4d22ecbb4788958d4ee45dd45 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Marina Freitas (marinapf@ufscar.br) on 2016-09-27T19:44:06Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 TeseFRS.pdf: 2872518 bytes, checksum: 745bb6d4d22ecbb4788958d4ee45dd45 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-09-27T19:50:19Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 TeseFRS.pdf: 2872518 bytes, checksum: 745bb6d4d22ecbb4788958d4ee45dd45 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-12-11 / Não recebi financiamento / The Statistical Process Control (SPC) is recognized in the literature as one of the main tools for controlling and improving the quality and productivity. The control chart is a central element of the SPC; and these, statistical tools whose efficiency depends on certain skills and organizational behavior. With regard to the results to the organization, it is observed that the use of control charts can be divided into two groups: those that can be directly attributed to reduced variability called hard; and those associated with the motivational aspects, or organic, called Soft. Despite the arguments in favor of SPC survey, a study conducted in the automotive sector shows that about 70% of companies have some difficulty in conducting their activities related to the SPC. On this, the literature indicates that factors related to methodological, statistical and managerial aspects of control charts of the implementation process are conditions for the success of a structured plan of implementation of the SPC. Given this situation, it is objective of this thesis contribute to an effective use of control charts by national companies, and to advances in research. To this end, we opted for a field survey to capture and describe the perceptions of experts who use control charts and working in the automotive industry. The field research was structured in three basic dimensions - statistics, methodology and management, and the results achieved by the use of the SPC, divided into Soft and Hard. The method used was based on a survey, which has a population of interest was the managers of SPC programs that use the control charts for more than 01 years in the auto parts industry. This survey was sent to 98 individuals in the population of interest, identified in the Official Guide Auto parts Industry (2014), which resulted in 37 questionnaires and valid for analysis. The results of this field research validated the hypotheses in part the theoretical framework, but showed, besides the complexity and importance of methodological and managerial aspects in the implementation of the SPC, there is a significant gap between theory and practice. This may partly be explained by the dissonance between the main scientific advances in the field, especially in the statistical aspects, and the controversies about the real benefits of SPC program. As a result of this thesis is recommended that field research has been done for that to report real success stories of the SPC; whose cases are examined in depth so that good practice is disseminated in the academic environment. / O Controle Estatístico de Processo (CEP) é reconhecido na literatura como uma das principais ferramentas para o controle e melhoria da qualidade e da produtividade. Constata-se que as cartas ou gráficos de controle é um elemento central do CEP; sendo essas, ferramentas estatísticas cujo uso eficiente depende de determinadas habilidades e comportamentos organizacional. No que se refere aos resultados para a organização, observa-se que o uso das cartas de controle pode ser dividido em dois grupos: aqueles que podem ser diretamente atribuídos à redução da variabilidade, denominado de hard; e aqueles associados aos aspectos motivacionais, ou orgânicos, denominados de Soft. Apesar dos argumentos favoráveis ao CEP, pesquisa realizada no setor automotivo aponta que cerca de 70% das empresas apresentam alguma dificuldade na condução das suas atividades relacionadas ao CEP. Sobre isso, a literatura indica que fatores relacionados aos aspectos metodológicos, estatísticos e gerenciais do processo de implantação das cartas de controle são condicionantes para o sucesso de um plano estruturado de implantação do CEP. Diante deste quadro, é objetivo desta tese contribuir para um efetivo uso das cartas de controlo pelas empresas nacionais, e também para avanços no campo da pesquisa. Para tal, optou-se por uma pesquisa de campo para captar e descrever as percepções de especialistas que usam gráficos de controle estatístico e que atuam na indústria automotiva. A pesquisa de campo foi estruturada em três dimensões básicas - a estatística, a metodológica e a gerencial, e nos resultados alcançados pelo uso do CEP, subdivididos em Soft e Hard. O método utilizado baseou-se em uma pesquisa de campo por amostragem, cuja população de interesse foi os gestores dos programas CEP que utilizam as cartas de controle estatístico por mais de 01 ano na indústria de autopeças. Foi enviado um total de 98 questionários para indivíduos da população de interesse, identificados no Guia Oficial do Setor de Autopeças (2014), que resultaram em 37 questionários respondidos e válidos para análise. Os resultados desta pesquisa de campo validaram em parte as hipóteses do referencial teórico, porém mostrou, além da complexidade e a importância dos aspectos metodológicos e gerenciais na implantação do CEP, que há uma lacuna significativa entre a teoria e a prática. Isso em parte pode ser explicado pela dissonância entre os principais avanços científicos na área, sobre tudo nos aspectos estatísticos, e as controvérsias sobre os reais benefícios de um programa CEP. Recomenda-se, como resultado desta tese, que pesquisas de campo sejam realizadas para que se relatem casos reais de sucesso do CEP; cujos casos sejam analisados em profundidade, para que boas práticas sejam disseminadas no ambiente acadêmico.