This study deals with a quality control application in a furniture manufacturing company. Furniture manufacturing involves several wood cutting operations in specified dimensions. Based on our investigation in a selected sofa-manufacturing factory, we have observed that cutting operations are not done in accurate procedures and usually result in wood slabs, which deviate from standard dimensions. One of the reasons that wood cutting operations are not done as accurate as the metal cutting operations is because it is easy to recut the excessive part on the longer wood slabs, and to add a small piece to a shorter wood slabs, as compared to metal cuts. While these extra processes do not appear to be significant, when they are added up in a mass manufacturing system, the waste in workers time, as well as in material usage, becomes substantial.

We have investigated a specific sofa manufacturing system and developed some hypothesis testing procedures to prove to the management the significance of the cutting deviations from the standard requirements. Amount of waste in labor time and material usage are quantified for a selected manufacturing period. Furthermore, some quality control procedures, including control charts, are developed and implemented in the factory to control the cutting operations. The procedures and the results presented in this study can be used by managers as guidelines in furniture manufacturing industry to improve their cutting operations and minimize the waste.   

Keywords:

Wood cutting, furniture manufacturing, quality control, cutting specifications, material waste.

Biographies

Dr. Mehmet Savsar is a professor of Industrial Engineering in the College of Engineering & Petroleum at Kuwait University. He holds MSc and PhD degrees from the Pennsylvania State University, USA, in the areas of Industrial Engineering and Operations research.  He has been teaching Industrial Engineering in various countries over the past 35 years. His research interests include quality, reliability, and maintenance management, JIT production, flexible manufacturing systems, and production control. He has over 80 journal publications and over 100 conference papers. He is on editorial boards of several international journals and conferences.

Eng. Hazza Alotaibi is a senior student in Industrial Engineer Department at Kuwait University. He is currently serving in the Kuwait Ministry of Defense as an officer. He is working in the simulation and quality department. He has been involved with several military projects.