DATA4.ZERO

BACKGROUND A vision of Zero Defect Manufacturing (ZDM) is the ultimate objective of any quality initiative, whilst optimising efficiencies and reducing costs. Some of which are based on reactive approaches thus focussing heavily on rigorous inspection of parts prior to transportation to the next stage whereas the others focus on stabilising the process that creates the anticipated function or the desired characteristics for the customer thus proactively trying to avoid defective parts. The reason for this is simply the lag time between the detection of critical deviation, decision making and the necessary process adjustments. As it is in the nature of many processes to move out of its control limits over time if no control efforts are made to keep up the process within the defined specification limits. Thanks to todays advanced sensorics, fast computing systems and sophisticated adaptive control systems, it is possible to ob tain real time data for analysing, decision making andcontrolling of process parameters. This means also the processing time from collecting information to making decision and carrying out adjustments can theoretically be reduced to a fraction of a second. The real challenges, however, are a) to define the right parameters to monitor deviations in real time, both in the process and in the process steps over the manufacturing line b) to define the right algorithm for recognising process instability c) to carry out an error-free diagnostic analysis for determining the root cause hence the adjusting parameters and d) finally the most challenging of all designing an agile programmable control equipment with fast and robust PID controller. e) to determine the best human-machine interface to cognitively support the operator decision making with limited time in cases of human-in-the-loop f) to close the knowledge divide between the different organizational functions, namely engineering and shopfloor