The effect of straight- and U-shaped lines on quality

Straight lines and U-lines are two commonly used layouts for production lines. To date, no research has studied the effect of these layouts on the quality of the products produced by the line. This paper examines U-shaped lines and straight lines from the viewpoint of their effect on quality, which is organized into Juran's quality planning, quality control, and quality improvement categories. Two or more quantitative measures are developed for each quality category, the effect of the shape of the line on the values of these measures is carefully analyzed, and the implications for problems of realistic size are discussed. The authors find that U-shaped lines outperform straight lines in all of the aspects of quality they examined.