Abstract
Effective & sustainable quality performance is key to railway manufacturing success. Good performance regulates the Cost Of Non-Quality(CONQ), and promotes resource allocation to Value-Add(VA) activities that feed into customer requirements. The paper investigates the relationship between quality Defect Per Unit(DPU) generated from a non-automated production process, vs. the same but partially automated (conceptual) production system built around Robotic Process Automation(RPA) principles, focusing on local South African railway manufacturer Company A;B. Desktop literature speaks to a positive correlation between process automation and project quality performance.
DPU data from South African Company A;B; captured across a sample size of 20 locomotives, over a 2 to 3 year period is dissected quantitatively to establish (a) quality performance(DPU based per unit) without RPA and (b) the theoretical quality performance of the same manufacturing system after the incorporation of RPA. Process automation design and limitation of the value chain is derived from a conservative automation scale approximation assumption(benchmarking of automated process industries).The paper finds that a conceptual automation of Company A;B’s value chain yields notable improvement in the number of DPU’s per Locomotive generated across the same sample size and period
Performance improvements of up to 65% are notable, along with a reduction of CONQ from 4.1 to 1.21 million ZAR, downtime from 58 to 16 days before and after RPA respectively. This contributes positively to project performance. The result further reinforces historic sentiments were RPA is generally accepted as a vehicle to accelerate product throughput and improve quality, enhancing industry economics as a result. The study provides a theoretical framework (proof of concept) with the intention for future prototyping or application .