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Incorporates the concept of quality control in the probabilistic analysis of two‐stage production systems. Provides an integrated framework to consider manufacturing, inspection and rework activities simultaneously. The system is provided with an initial storage of unlimited capacity. Rework of a defective item produced by machine I is done on machine I itself and depends on the type of defect. Explicit expressions for some of the system characteristics have been obtained using the state‐space method and regeneration point technique. All the random variables involved in the analysis are assumed to be arbitrarily distributed (i.e. general).

The introduction of surface mount technology has changed the approach which is needed for successful rework of components. This has been brought about by the requirement of simultaneous reflow of all joints to remove the component from the board. To meet this need, manual soldering methods have been adapted, and subsequently complemented, with dedicated hot bar, hot gas and infra‐red systems. Each of these techniques with their respective applicability is considered, prior to a discussion of the parameters which need to be addressed before embarking on successful rework. All aspects of component, board and the joint itself are considered. The procedure for addressing rework is then laid out, providing a standard methodology to obtain rework joints which maintain the quality of the production joints.

This year's Internepcon Production Exhibition and Conference (22–24 March 1988, National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham) promises to be the biggest ever in the event's twenty‐one year history and will host a number of special new features.

Today substantial investments are made to improve the bottom line and cost of quality (CoQ) is a tool that identifies weaker areas where these investments should be directed. In literature, the authors find various CoQ models and their applications but it is deficient in providing a standard format of a “Quality Cost Procedure” for a CoQ program’s company-wide deployment. A procedure was thus developed and its effectiveness was evaluated implementation. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

CoQ program was implemented in the production department of a wood products’ manufacturer using the action research approach. Prevention, Appraisal and Failure Cost model was employed. Data collection was challenging, however, stakeholders were interviewed, data were acquired from Management Information System and various reports were reviewed for cost elements.

Total CoQ as a percentage of sales was found to be 11, while as a percentage of material cost was 15 percent. It was found through the implementation that development of a quality cost procedure is highly iterative in nature and a standard format is proposed in the Appendix. This procedure worked satisfactorily and the company is confident in moving to the next phase of company-wide deployment of CoQ Program.

A robust “Quality Cost Procedure” is developed, which not only helped the company but will serve CoQ implementers in their operational as well as tactical levels of management. CoQ implementation prior development of procedure brought conviction and accredited it. Practitioners can mold this procedure as per need, which will further enhance the body of knowledge on CoQ.

The purpose of this paper is to apply the developed systematic mechanical design methodologies, that are obtained in part I, to investigate their success in designing mechanics of a flexible printed circuit board assembly (PCBA) rework cell.

The decision of soldering and desoldering tool, which is the most critical function of a PCBA rework or remanufacturing cell, significantly influences overall design concept. Therefore, the paper starts by applying the design methodology to the soldering and desoldering function. The same study is repeated for the rest of the sub‐functions but only the results are provided.

An application of rework machine design methodology for the design of a PCBA rework cell has been made available. In addition to this, the embedded knowledge, such as the requirements list, the function structure, the function/means tree, the weighted objective tree and evaluation chart for the soldering and desoldering function are provided.

The paper is the first work providing both embedded knowledge and the application of the systematic design methodology for the design of a fully automated flexible PCBA rework cell. The methodology leads rework machine designers in a well‐controlled and structured design environment.

The design methodology can be applied to all functions or targeted on key weighted areas to ensure that the designed rework machine meets the key areas of concerns. Furthermore, the methodology is generic and may be used to develop other complex manufacturing sytems.

The purpose of this study is to formulate two multi-product single-machine economic production quantity (EPQ) models by considering imperfect products. Two policies are assumed to deal with imperfect products: selling them at discount and applying a reworking process.

A screening process is used to identify imperfect items during and after production. Selling the imperfect items at a discount is examined in the first model and the reworking policy in the second model. In both models, demand during the production process is satisfied only by perfect items. Data collected from a case company are used to illustrate the performance of the two models. Moreover, a sensitivity analysis is carried out by varying the most important parameters of the models.

The case study in this research is used to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed models, i.e. the EPQ model with salvaging and reworking imperfect items. The models are applied to a high-tech un-plasticized polyvinyl chloride (UPVC) doors and windows manufacturer that produces different types of doors and windows. ROGAWIN Co. is a privately owned company that started in 2001 with fully automatic production lines. Finally, the results of applying the different ways of handling the imperfect items are discussed, along with managerial insights.

In real-world production systems, manufacturing imperfect products is unavoidable. That is why, it is important to make a proper decision about imperfect products to reduce overall production costs. Recently, applying a reworking strategy has gained the most interest when it comes to handling this problem. The principal idea of this research is to maximize the total profit of manufacturing systems by optimizing the period length under some capacity constraints. The proposed models were applied to a company of manufacturing UPVC doors and windows.

This paper discusses chip removal and replacement processes of flip chip assemblies (FCAs) on printed wiring boards (PWBs). The original chip connection is achieved via mass reflow as in a surface mount assembly process. The FCA interconnection is one involving a surrogate solder bump on a chip and a lower melt solder on the PWB pads that fuses with the bump during reflow. The chip removal process thus entails melting the lower melt solder locally using hot gas. The following considerations will be discussed in the paper: chip size, chip removal methodology, local vs mass reflow for replacement attachment, solder height, the impact of multiple reflows on the solder joint integrity of assemblies. The use of the flip chip rework machine to remove ball grid arrays (BGAs) and quad flatpacks (QFPs) will be briefly addressed.

This paper aims to consider a multi-site production planning problem with failure in rework and breakdown subject to demand uncertainty.

In this new mathematical model, at first, a feasible range for production time is found, and then the model is rewritten considering the demand uncertainty and robust optimization techniques. Here, three evolutionary methods are presented: robust particle swarm optimization, robust genetic algorithm (RGA) and robust simulated annealing with the ability of handling uncertainties. Firstly, the proposed mathematical model is validated by solving a problem in the LINGO environment. Afterwards, to compare and find the efficiency of the proposed evolutionary methods, some large-size test problems are solved.

The results show that the proposed models can prepare a promising approach to fulfill an efficient production planning in multi-site production planning. Results obtained by comparing the three proposed algorithms demonstrate that the presented RGA has better and more efficient solutions.

Considering the robust optimization approach to production system with failure in rework and breakdown under uncertainty.

This paper describes the design and implementation of an activity‐based costing (ABC) system for a textile company in Taiwan.

An in‐depth field investigation by collecting and analyzing 39 months of field data, gathering information from files and archives, direct observation, interviews, and statistical analyses was conducted.

First, the company's existing cost system adopted a volume‐based cost driver to allocate overhead costs to products. While the company devised an “equivalent factor” to take production‐complexity into account, the weakness of the metric led to product cost distortions. Second, the existing volume‐based cost system ignores the impact of rework processes on product costs. Third, adding complexity‐related cost drivers to the volume‐based cost driver increases the ability to explain variations in overhead costs. Fourth, the newly designed ABC system incorporates both volume‐based and non‐volume based drivers, which considers the effect of rework on product costs. Fifth, the existing volume‐based cost system overestimates the costs of high‐volume products and underestimates the costs of products with high production‐complexity. Finally, the company still stays at the analysis phase of the ABC system implementation, possibly due to revision of strategy, no linkage to incentives, lack of MIS support, and inadequate inventory control.

The above findings have implications for companies attempting to implement ABC.

This paper extends prior research in the following. First, it reports on the entire process of ABC implementation for a given company, as well as facilitators/impediments in the process. Second, while most prior research tends to focus on success cases, our study presents a failure case, which has implications for practitioners trying to avoid the same mistakes.

This paper aims to overcome the inability of both comparing loss costs and accounting for production resource losses of Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE)-related approaches.

The authors conducted a literature review about the studies focusing on approaches combining OEE with monetary units and/or resource issues. The authors developed an approach based on Overall Equipment Cost Loss (OECL), introducing a component for the production resource consumption of a machine. A real case study about a smart multicenter three-spindle machine is used to test the applicability of the approach.

The paper proposes Resource Overall Equipment Cost Loss (ROECL), i.e. a new KPI expressed in monetary units that represents the total cost of losses (including production resource ones) caused by inefficiencies and deviations of the machine or equipment from its optimal operating status occurring over a specific time period. ROECL enables to quantify the variation of the product cost occurring when a machine or equipment changes its health status and to determine the actual product cost for a given production order. In the analysed case study, the most critical production orders showed an actual production cost about 60% higher than the minimal cost possible under the most efficient operating conditions.

The proposed approach may support both production and cost accounting managers during the identification of areas requiring attention and representing opportunities for improvement in terms of availability, performance, quality, and resource losses.