Quality level assessment of manufacturing systems based on subjective inspection

To evaluate the quality level of a manufacturing cell or of a process whose acceptance is based on subjective calls from inspectors, it is necessary to construct factors according to the capability of the inspection methods and the manufacturing characteristics of the process. Due to such subjectivity, evaluation factors and acceptance criteria are established. The author presents the application of a dual-level fuzzy model that does allow a quality engineer to assess quality levels for a manufacturing cell under a subjective inspection environment. The model is tested with manual TIG welding data from five welding teams. The result shows an effective approach to determine quality levels when the nature of the inspection is imprecise and subjective