Prioritizing tactical quality improvement: An action research study

The purpose of this paper is to test a method for improving decision‐making at a tactical level – i.e. at the shop floor level. This is done by testing the use of the binary sorting algorithm (BSA) to improve decisions concerning quality improvement efforts among machine operators in a plastics manufacturer.

The method used was the “action‐research” approach since the researchers were actively involved in the training, implementation, and use of the BSA.

It was found that using the BSA to prioritize quality improvement efforts by machine operators reduced the “scrap‐from‐line” rate in a plastics manufacturer.

The study should be replicated in different companies and industries using multiple methods because action‐research is limited in its generalizability. Also, since the researchers are actively involved in the process, our observations could not be considered objective.

To the authors' knowledge, this is the first application of the BSA to improve decision‐making at a tactical shop‐floor level in a manufacturing company.