A quality / cost-based improvement approach for conceptual process planning

This paper proposes an approach to develop a quality/cost-based conceptual process planning (QCCPP). This approach aims to determine key process resources with estimation of manufacturing cost taking into account the risk cost associated to process plan. Quality Function Deployment (QFD) method is used to select process alternatives. The results of QFD method have been taken as input to complete process Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA). To estimate manufacturing cost, the proposed approach deploys Activity-Based Costing (ABC) method. Then cost-based FMEA method is employed to estimate the cost of all risks associated to studied process plan. The output data gathered in this approach could be used as the guidelines for detailed process planning in order to improve product quality/cost ratio.