Investigating weight variability of food products: A six sigma approach

Gomez, TG, Kennedy, Ian and Haider, J (2014) Investigating weight variability of food products: A six sigma approach. In: International Conference on Manufacturing Research (ICMR 2014), 09 September 2014 - 11 September 2014, Southampton, UK.

Preview

Available under License In Copyright. Download (557kB) | Preview

Abstract

Overweight in the net product content is commonly observed in the food manufacturing industries in order to avoid the risks of non-compliance regulations. Excessive weight in the products above the specified and legal minimum weight is passed on free to the customers. This giveaway weight is a potential waste leading to variation in product quality, an increased manufacturing cost and reduced profitability. This paper addresses a case study on the implementation of Six sigma approach in a frozen food manufacturing company in order identify the root causes of variation in the net weight of the products, to minimise the variation and to reduce the waste. Necessary data was gathered after each stage of the manufacturing process. The results showed that the poor water control in the forming machine, the damaged state of the forming plates and the poor state of the batter enrobing machine could be responsible for the variation.