Reducing the defects of a-pillar stamping partin automotive assembly process

The goal of this research is to minimize defects in the process of automotive assembly. Regarding the one-year defect and value; the biggest defect cost come from portion of the A-Pillar stamping parts. Therefore, by using Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA) to examine it and perform experiments using the Design of Experiment (DOE), we investigated the production process as well as figuring out the cause of the problems that happen in the stamping process. The results found that the issue arose from the design of stamping die, which is the risk of springback problems of parts, is not good enough to make a huge parts. Once the stamping process has been improved by adding re-strike die; the quantity of defects from 492 cases is expected to be zero and the defect cost amount of 27 million Thai Baht per year is saved. The process capability Cpk of position A10 and A11 has improve from 0.05 to 0.90 and 0.03 to 0.92, respectively.