MIE.49 – Topy Precision

• Omar Adnan
• Puneet Kaur
• Kaitlyn Montague
• Alex Trzaska

Topy Precision is a global company that specializes in manufacturing and selling precise fasteners to major companies such as Honda and many others in the automotive industry. They stem from a parent company in Japan that has extended their business internationally. They have tasked the team with a problem that is lowering their productivity and has never truly been analyzed before. This project focuses on extending the lifetime of a grinding stone used in the grinding process of a shim down to a desired thickness to be used in a specific component in an engine or other component of a vehicle. Currently, the machine operators are instructed to redress the grinding stones every 3000 pieces that run through the machine by a diamondhead which strips the uneven layer of stone and creates a smooth surface once again. The best way to elongate the lifetime of the stone is to minimize the number of times the stone is redressed, minimizing the amount of stone used and creating a longer lifetime. The current standard was given by the stone supplier but is unreliable since it has never been questioned or tested before. In the automotive industry, there is a “zero tolerance for error”, as quoted by the team’s sponsor, which means that the precision of this process is very important. Due to this low tolerance for error, samples are inspected by the grinding operators during the operation of the machines quite frequently. Intermittently throughout the operation, the operator will inspect a shim to ensure that there are no defects and that the grinder is still producing parts within the tolerances. The team would like to analyze a handful of shims that the machine expels and analyze the data in order to give recommendations on how to solve this issue. Since the current standard was given by the stone supplier and has never been tested before, there is a good chance that the optimal range still needs to be determined. The team also wants to observe the effects of changing the amount the grinding stones are redressed. The stones are currently cut 0.15mm for every redress and have not been tested at different points. The goal would be to determine how changing the amount redressed affects the overall lifetime of the grinding stones. Our analysis will include creating control charts using past data concerning the important measurements used by the quality control team when determining if a shim is in specification or not. Another part of the project is to create a new plant layout for their facility since they are removing most of their machines out and moving their inventory from a separate warehouse to the original facility.