Abstract

The need to reduce defects and ability to track frequent activities in a film packaging industry is vital to allow smooth operation. The focus of this paper is to develop and implement a semi-automated model to accelerate the rate of Kaizen in film packaging industry. A study was carried out for process enhancement by improving a nonconformance closure system in order to eliminate scrap rate. Ishikawa analysis and 5 whys were integrated in order to construct a semi-automated model for nonconformance closure. The semi-automated model led to drastic improvements and with this semi-automated model of nonconformance corrective action it was further evaluated that recycle process was consuming a lot of energy and the new quicker recycle method was introduced. Effective nonconformance closure system resulted in good adherence to international quality standards. It was concluded that effective troubleshooting process plays a big role in generating improvements and avoiding frequent occurrences of the same problem.  Although the framework has been developed for the film packaging industry, it can also be applied in control of non-conformances irrespective of the industry.

Key words: Kaizen, non-conformance and semi-automated model