Control and Reduction of Deviations in Production Processes : An Intelligent Quality Management approach

Sammanfattning: Companies situated in the manufacturing industry are facing many challenges.  In order to stay competitive and to be able to meet customer needs the product and process quality must be ensured through efficient Quality Management (QM) activities. In this context, occurrences of deviations in production processes are often a significant problem causing an increased rate of scraps and rework actions, which have a direct impact on the production system performance. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is to explore the concept of IQM in connection with ways to control and reduce deviations within production processes. The single case study approach has been chosen to fulfill the purpose and to answer the research questions of this study. The selected case company is a large wooden furniture manufacturer located in the south of Sweden. The company is a subsidiary of one of the biggest global groups, which is designing, producing and selling furniture and home accessories. Within this case study design, a technique triangulation of observation, document study and interview has been executed in order to gather valid research data.   The results of this thesis are, that deviations in production processes (re-)occur due to human, technological and organizational (HTO) shortcomings, where the interfaces between the three segments play major roles. Moreover, the HTO approach can be the basis for identifying the reasons for deviations, which facilitates the adoption of QM principles, practices and techniques to handle deviations in production processes. The concept of IQM could support the control and reduction of deviations in production processes, but also entails a risk of causing more deviations if it is poorly implemented. Moreover, a framework has been created, which provides an understanding on what role IQM could play in the context of deviations in production processes. It can be concluded, that a good basis for future research regarding IQM has been built. Future research needs to verify the gathered results of this thesis in different settings as well as practically implement IQM to a company´s system.