Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering Commons^™

Effective Use Of Process Capability Indices For Supplier Management, Elizabeth A. Cudney, David Drain

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Process capability indices were originally invented to enable an organization to make economically sound decisions for process management. Process capability is a comparison of the voice of the process with the voice of the customer. Current practice is to use Cp and Cpk regardless of the validity of the underlying assumptions necessary for their use. Even if all necessary assumptions are satisfied, important problems can be missed if these indices are the sole process evaluation examined. Customer-supplier axioms are introduced to motivate more useful process evaluations and foster long-term harmonious relationships. This paper explores the alternative capability indices Cpm, Cpmk, …