Case Studies: Quality Control Increases Throughput
In the spring of 2004, Mercury Marine (Fond du Lac, WI) introduced the Verado-a six-cylinder, four-stroke 275-horsepower outboard engine. In addition to being the industry's first supercharged outboard engine, it is noteworthy in terms of its quality assurance program.
Typically, outboard engine manufacturers use end-of-the-line hot testing to verify quality. This involves starting each fully assembled engine and letting it run for a given period of time. The downside to this kind of testing is that, with a fully assembled engine, it can be difficult to diagnose the root cause of any failure, requiring greater time and effort to make the repairs. Hot-test stations also tend to be costly, irrespective of the number of defects that need to be repaired. The cycle time required to complete a test typically results in a production bottleneck.