Welcome to August, 2019 edition of Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs.
Our core subject of Quality Management – Road Ahead to Digital Transformation during the year 2019, we have covered The Basics of Digitization, Digitalization and Digital Transformation, The foundation of the Digital Quality Management, Quality 4.0 and Industry 4.0 technologies Big Data Analytics, Cloud computing, Robotics and Augmented Reality.
We will now take up fourth of the nine disruptive technologies of Industry 4.0 – Simulation.
The simulation hypothesis is the idea that reality is a digital simulation. Technological advances will inevitably produce automated artificial superintelligence that will, in turn, create simulations to better understand the universe. This opens the door for the idea that superintelligence already exists and created simulations now occupied by humans. At first blush the notion that reality is pure simulacra seems preposterous, but the hypothesis springs from decades of scientific research and is taken seriously by academics, scientists, and entrepreneurs like Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk.[1]
Techopedia defines Simulation as ‘any research or development project where researchers or developers create a model of some authentic phenomenon. Many aspects of the natural world can be transformed into mathematical models, and using simulation allows IT systems to mimic the outcomes that happen in the natural world.’[2]
The word “simulation” is sometimes also defined as “the imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system over time.”[3]… Imitating a real-world process or system allows experts to study the process or system they are interested in within a controlled, repeatable environment… Since commissioning of new manufacturing facilities, production lines, and processes is often costly and capital-intensive, applying simulation methods to manufacturing can yield enormous benefits.
The most important objective of simulation in manufacturing is the understanding of the change to the whole system because of some local changes. It is easy to understand the difference made by changes in the local system, but it is very difficult or impossible to assess the impact of this change in the overall system.[4]
For example –
ANDRITZ AUTOMATION Scada in P&P Balematic with INLINE Simulation tool, helps in testing the functional behavior of a machine is against the application design prior to manufacturing.
The first step on the 4.0 factory path is simulation.[5] 3D inspection, integral in the Smart Factory, should be simulated, providing greater productivity, efficiency and smarter part programming –
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- Because when metrologists program offline inspection tasks on complete simulated twins of their actual environment and equipment, the actual physical equipment is free to continue measuring and monitoring.
- Because when inspection programs have been simulated and virtually tested, they are error and collision-free when applied to the manufacturing process.
- Because, an offline simulation program can work directly with native or neutral CAD files and automatically interpret Geometric dimensioning and tolerancing (GD&T).
One can find several research papers dealing with subject of use of simulation in the quality management. Since these papers require very specific access approvals, we have picked up two representative papers here for the illustrative purpose–
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- An Application of Computer Simulation to Quality Control in Manufacturing – The company was using a standard skip lot procedure with a single sampling by attributes plan at the initiation of this study. An analysis of the situation revealed that the complex skip lot procedure was inappropriate and that the use of multi-stage attribute sampling plans could improve inspector productivity by lowering the average sample number per lot undergoing inspection. To demonstrate these proposals to management, a computer simulation model was developed which simulated the system in use by the company and a variety of other possible systems. Based on the simulation results, the management decided to implement a system employing uniform skipping between lot inspections and multi-stage attribute sampling plans. The system resulted in marked improvements in operating performance as measured by six month’s actual results.
- Simulation in Quality Management – An Approach to Improve Inspection Planning – Production is a multi-step process involving many different articles produced in different jobs by various machining stations. Quality inspection has to be integrated in the production sequence in order to ensure the conformance of the products. The interactions between manufacturing processes and inspections are very complex since three aspects (quality, cost, and time) should all be considered at the same time while determining the suitable inspection strategy. Therefore, a simulation approach was introduced to solve this problem.
We will now turn to our regular sections:
For the present episode we have picked up article, The “Curiosity” Disconnect Between Executives and Employees, by Editorial Staff , on Innovation & Entrepreneurship column of Management Matters Network …. “Most of the breakthrough discoveries and remarkable inventions throughout history, from flints for starting a fire to self-driving cars, have something in common: They are the result of curiosity.”
We now watch ASQ TV, wherein we look at a few recent videos:
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- Improve Process Design at Your Organization – William Hathaway, President, Moresteam, discusses current process tools and agile process to help bring improved process design to your company.
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Jim L. Smith’s Jim’s Gems posting for July 2019 is:
- Resilience means being able to cope with situations in spite of setbacks or barriers. Essentially, resilience refers to our ability to recover from adversity….This quality of resiliency, or the ability to suffer loss and recover from devastation, has a lot to do with our overall feelings of self-worth. It also has a lot to do with our belief about whether our life is largely controlled by us, or by forces outside our self…There are four
major cornerstones to learning resilience. First, avoid feeling that you’re a victim. Second, accept that change is constant so it’s part of life so there’s no escaping it. Third, avoid seeing obstacles as being insurmountable. Forth, focus on the positive. - Persistence Pays Dividends – Many experts say that most people try eight, nine, or ten ways to make a change, and when they don’t get the desired outcome, they give up! …What most people miss is that the key to success is to decide what’s most important to them and then take considerable action, each day, to make it better, even when it doesn’t appear that progress is being made.
I look forward to receiving your inputs / suggestions that can further enrich our discussions on the subject of Digitalization in the Quality Management
Note: The images depicted here above are through courtesy of respective websites who have the copyrights for the respective images.
[1] Simulation hypothesis: The smart person’s guide
[2] What does Simulation mean?
[3] Manufacturing simulation for Industry 4.0
The world is too small? or Is it? 