The electrical manufacturing industry is a highly competitive field, where the success of the system is reflected through minimal losses and higher productivity, which will satisfy the customer requirement with the maximum profits. Laboratories are an essential section of any manufacturing plant as a part of the design and development group or in the production verification and qualification process. One of the key laboratories in an Electronics Manufacturing and Service (EMS) provider is the Failure Analysis (FA) laboratory. It is an end-of-line section, and it focuses on the final product quality, including confirming and containing any production failures and preventing them from being delivered to the customers. Improving the FA processes can be done in several ways. The primary objective of this research endeavor is to integrate lean manufacturing principles in the FA section of a pressure sensor assembly line at an automotive EMS facility.

The use of Lean Manufacturing in the FA section was justified due to the fact that ‘lean’ is a philosophy that can be applied in any process-related improvement activity. In this research endeavor, lean principles were used to identify, reduce and eliminate non-value-added activities and waste. By doing that, an increase in process speed, decrease in production costs, and more profit were realized. Specifically, statistical data analysis of the current FA processes was done in order to identify the performance measurement and the critical factors that affected the utilization of the FA resources. Alternative scenarios included (i) modifying the last cell of the production line to suit the FA process requirements, and (ii) optimizing the available resources (machines and manpower) to reduce wasted sources. To evaluate the process performance, a discrete event simulation model replicating the current system was built, validated and used. This strategy helped to assess the impact of the proposed improvements.

This research endeavor studied the application of the lean principles and discrete event simulation in a rather unique setting in the manufacturing sector, namely the laboratory. This effort eventually led to an increased total throughput, a reduction in the wasted products and time, and increased total profit.