Abstract This paper reports the results of a case study which was undertaken to understand the sources and costs of process variation at a manufacturing facility of a major paper producer. Sources of process variation that were thought to be cost drivers by managers (based on interviews) were empirically evaluated using an Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) model. This study finds that a) crews, b) shifts, c) product grades, d) rest interval between shifts, e) grade changes, f) machine downtime, g) changes in shift, and h) various interaction effects all are significant sources of variation in product quality. From these variables, this study develops a heuristic to improve the manufacturing process with regard to product quality.
Albright et al. (Tue,) studied this question.
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