Research Article
Kassu Jilcha, Mihret Tigabie
Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to investigate quality control and supply chain management practice in the case company (Wossi Garment Factory) and apply the statistical quality control tools to solve the process and product quality problems in shirt manufacturing and increase the competitiveness of the company. The case study was done using both qualitative and quantitative approaches which could be said mixed approach. First of all, data collection has been conducted by actual presence in the case company. The data were collected using the check sheet. The team has collected the two months data from the case company. After adequate statistical data was collected, the team had used Microsoft excel and excel add on software to analyze the data using statistical quality control tools. The level of quality expectation of the products within the international customers are high, however the case company, the quality control system is not as strong as it is supposed to be. The company is not using statistical quality control tools except check sheet. Because of this, there is significant amount of rejection of products and has resulted on low economic benefit. The products with defects do not qualify for international market rather whenever there is defect on product; it is pushed to local market which has impact on supply chain performance generally. The case study has shown that, the quality of shirt could be improved to the extent of making the defect zero if the statistical quality control tools are applied properly. The case study team has shown the methodology and the sequence of the application of the statistical quality control tools and basically systematic application of DMAIC following with check sheet, process flow diagram, fishbone, Pareto Chart, histogram, control limits and process capability enhancement could bring significant quality improvement in the case company. This paper showed the direct relationship of statistical quality control tools application and supply chain management. Mathematical modeling of impact of quality control over the supply chain performance and cost benefit analysis has been used as major methodology and result discussions and conclusions are drown and recommendation is also forwarded.