Production error distribution in sheet metal industry

Abstract

Production flow of the sheet metal part based constructions is inspected in this paper. The main objective of this paper is to analyze the production flow error distri-bution in the production flow of the sheet metal based con-structions. This paper is based on a field study carried out in three Finnish case factories which produce sheet metal part based constructions, mainly for electronics and tele-communication-related industry. In each case factory the most delicate work phases for the production errors were detected but no common theme can be found from the col-lected production error data. From the collected data it can be however identified, that the majority of production er-rors are caused in manually operated and in mass produc-tion work phases. In each case factory this observation can be used when development activities are planned.