Aplicação de ferramentas da qualidade na identificação e análise das perdas do processo produtivo de uma indústria de laticínios

Abstract

In Brazil, the high production of milk makes the dairy industry an important economic sector. However, the growth in the cost of the main inputs used in the manufacture of these products harms the profitability of the sector. In view of this, the application of concepts from the lean manufacturing philosophy and quality tools in the production process of organizations can prove to be a competitive advantage, since they seek to reduce costs by focusing on customer satisfaction and elimination of waste. In this sense, the objective of this work is to apply quality tools in the identification and analysis of losses in the production process of cream cheese in a dairy industry, to implement improvements to mitigate them. As for the methodology, the procedure used consists of a case study. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, document analysis and verification sheets. For data analysis, the quality tools cause and effect diagram, Pareto diagram and x-bar control charts were used. The results showed that the critical cause of product loss was weight variation, which occurs when the product is packaged outside the weight range established by the quality sector. From the implemented improvements, the analysis of the control charts indicated that the continuous process was out of control, requiring a more in-depth study on the causes of instability in the process.