Quality Improvement of Rice Coating Processby Using FMEA Technique

Abstract

This thesis aims to study about the quality improvement of rice coating process by using FMEA (Failure Mode and Effect Analysis) technique which this technique analyses the potential failure modes and their effects. The objective of this research is to improve the organic rice operational process in order to reduce the amount of broken rice. Problems that cause broken rice in the organic rice operational process can be analysed by using Pareto Diagram. The result was found that about 10% of the broken rice was caused by coating and drying process each. From the result, FMEA technique is used to solve causes of broken rice which the causes were analysed by using Cause and Effect Diagram. Firstly, FMEA team was established by choosing team workers from people who have high experience and skill. Then the team analyses each cause in order to set up each RPN (Risk Priority Number) score. The RPN score shows the cause’s priority so higher RPN score needs to be eliminated first. After that, brainstorming is needed in order to find suitable ways to solve each cause. After implement FMEA technique, the result of this research showed that there is improvement in amount of broken rice which reduced from 20.7% to 17.9%. This also reduces the process time from 172 minutes to 141 minutes. Moreover, the % reduction of RPN score ranks from 71% to 90%.