IE 811 Human Factors in Quality Control
Rationale
The course reflects both a broadening of the scope of quality
control and a reflection of the changing
demands of industry. As we will discuss, industry is changing
towards predictive quality control, and
is taking more care to measure process and their outcomes. In
addition, inspection in non-industrial
contexts is increasing, e.g. aircraft and bridge structures. We
will cover the traditional aspects of the
human as a detector of quality, or lack of it, in products, but
will use this as the basis for a broader
taxonomy of human tasks in inspection. Stages following detection
will not be ignored, for example
diagnosis of out of control or out of specification conditions,
and determination of remedial action.
All may be carried out by the same operator, or by different team
members or automated devices. In
each case, the decisions on allocation of function will be made
explicit, with consideration of automated
test and inspection devices. For both the human in the system
and any hardware or software, models of
performance will be developed in some detail, for example visual
search and automated vision systems.
At the end of the course the participant will have an understanding
of the allocation problems, and in some
case numerical solution to those problems. Structure We will use
both lecture and discussion formats
throughout the course, with all participants presenting and discussing
readings from the areas of human
factors and quality control. There will be no textbook, as all
useful ones are too dated. Instead readings will
be from the current and classic literature. Classes typically
will consist of a presentation by the instructor
followed by papers presented and discussed by all participants
An original project will be required, typically performed in groups
of two. Grading Presentation/Assignments 150 Class Participation/attendance
100
Project 400 Mid Term I 200 Feb 9th Mid Term II 200 March 26th
Final 200 Finals week Preliminary Course
Content - Inspector error in quality control - Description of
Visual Inspection - Visual Search Models Random
search Systematic search Memory search - Visual search termination:
stopping policies - Visual Lobe -
Decision making - Factors affecting visual search and decision
making - Speed accuracy tradeoff - Measuring
Inspection Performance - Training and inspection - Function allocation
issues in inspection systems
Teaching Assistants
Rahul Desai, rrahul@clemson.edu
Sittichai Kaewkuekool, skaewku@clemson.edu
