A demerit-fuzzy rating system, monitoring scheme and classification for manufacturing processes

• Fuzzy weights properly reflect defect severity and impact control charts’ performance.
• Two fuzzy numbers can be ranked into: larger, rather larger, rather smaller, and smaller.
• Our demerit-fuzzy approach can classify a process into multi-intermittent statuses.
• Thorough quantitative conditions to classify a manufacturing process are proposed.
• A case study in monitoring garment-stitching defects is used to elucidate our approach.

For monitoring online manufacturing processes, the proportion of weights imposed on each type of product’s defects (nonconformities or demerits) has a profoundly effective impact on control charts’ performance. Apparently, the demerit-chart approach is superior than the widely-used c-chart scheme, because it allows us to place relative precise weights (real numbers) on defects according to their distinctly inferior degrees affecting the product quality so that the abnormal variations of processes can be literally exposed. However, in many applications, the seriousness of defects is evaluated partially or entirely by the inspectors’ perceptive judgement or knowledge, so with the precise-weight assignment, the demerit rating mechanism is considered to be somewhat constrained and subjective which inevitably leads to the targeted manufacturing process with limited and possibly biased information for online surveillance. To cope with the drawback, a demerit-fuzzy rating system and monitoring scheme is proposed in this paper. We first incorporate fuzzy weights (fuzzy numbers) to properly reflect the severity measures of defects which are categorized linguistically. Then, based on properties of fuzzy set theory and proposed approaches for fuzzy-number ranking, we develop the demerit-fuzzy charting scheme which is capable of discriminating process conditions into multi-intermittent statuses between in-control and out-of-control. This approach improves the traditional process control techniques with the binary-classification restraint for the process conditions. Finally, the proposed demerit-fuzzy rating system, monitoring scheme, and classification is elucidated by an application in garment industry to monitor textile-stitching nonconformities conditions.