Design and Manufacturing of Polymer Composite Materials Using Quality Management Methods

Abstract

Many factors influence the design and manufacturing of products from polymer composite materials. The expert assessment method was applied in the article for the corresponding analysis. A cause-and-effect diagram was built as a result of a preliminary analysis of the influence of factors on the primary indicator of product quality indicators (e.g., wear resistance). Based on the expert assessment results and quality function deployment analysis, the most critical factors affecting wear resistance were obtained: polymer brand, filler shape and size, technological parameters of mixing, pressing, sintering, and mechanical processing. Their impact was studied to establish quantitative dependencies. A stable value of the wear resistance of the product in the manufacturing process can be ensured by timely adjustment of the mixing, pressing, and sintering modes. As a result of the structural analysis of the process of developing materials with predetermined properties at the enterprise according to the IDEF0 methodology, the importance of assessing the risks associated with the process of multi-criteria optimization of their main quality indicators was confirmed.