The necessity of modern quality improvement and some experience with its implementation in the manufacture of rolling bearings

Abstract

SKF restructured its manufacturing world-wide in response to competition from Japan in the early 1970s. The necessity of a company-wide quality procedure soon became evident. Its implementation later paved the way for both the implementation of statistical process control (SPC) and the acceptance of experimental design throughout the company. Topics discussed in this paper include the structure of SKF quality procedures, difficulties that have been encountered and benefits experienced while implementing SPC throughout the organization. Furthermore, experimental design, which is a natural extension of SPC, is discussed with the emphasis on foreseen benefits from its implementation in an organization. Finally, an example is given of how SKF has been able to vastly improve the performance of a bearing in a certain application by using experimental design. Also the manner in which non-contributory factors can be used to decrease the final product’s cost is stressed.