Key factors influencing the optimum production by the glove knitting machine in a private company in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Knitting Machines of leading rubber manufacturing company was fully booked with glove knitting orders. So, the Excess capacities were outsourced within Sri Lanka or outside of Sri Lankan region. Since the company is Customer Centric Factory, the Profit margins came down due to the outsourcing the Capacity. So, the aim of this study was to analyse and determined key factors influencing the optimum machine production for specific products. Designed experiment was used to perform this analysis. Number of defectives used as the response variable. This will allow company to do the production in-house without outsourcing. This project contains study of four main factors and its effect on production and efficiency of the flat knitting machine based on minimal defect rate. The machine base, machine servicing activity, speed of the machine and the machine type plays an important role in knitting defects. The defect rates of knitted gloves were investigated using full factorial experimental design. The effect of machine base, machine servicing activity, machine speed and the machine type have been studied under four cases based on pareto principle. The four cases namely, Case I: 15G - Nylon, Case II: 13G - Thermostat, Case III: 13G – HPPE (High Performance Polyethylene), Case IV: 10G – HPPE. The results show that the machine base and the machine servicing have significant impact on the defects rate for all four cases, whereas, machine speed became significant for case II, III, and IV, as well as the machine type became significant impact for case IV based on linear terms. For 2-way interaction term, the machine base and the machine type have significant impact on the defects rate for case IV. The p-values of all four controlled parameters have been determined using ANOVA. The optimum parameters that correspond to the lower defects rate have also been evaluated.