How many ammunition defect categories are there

Control, vol. WANG, J. LI, J. Institute Ind. YOO, D. KIM, and M. HE, C. GU, Z. HE, and J. E-ISSN Journal Index. User Username Password Remember me. Notifications View Subscribe. Quality Analysis of 5. Abstract In a manufacturing company, the quality loss is estimated by considering the number of defects. Taguchi is a method that finds strong conditions in uncontrollable environments of the field. Taguchi quantifies quality loss through a quality loss function.

The Taguchi method particularly is focused on industrial processes. The method is actualizing quality philosophy for continuous quality improvement and cost reduction to improve manufacturing performance. The analysis is designed using Taguchi technique which is related to quality. A high-quality product has a minimal defect. The Taguchi method is used to analyze several defects of ammunition to reduce the number of ammunition defects.

Ammunition consists of several parts are called projectile or bullet, cartridge case, propellant charge, and primer. Every part of its process possibly contributes to any defect. The defect type in every part of ammunition consists of critical, major, and minor defects. This has resulted in the Army taking the extreme step of placing an altogether halt to testing and firing certain types of ammunition such as, for example, the 40 mm ammunition for the L air defence guns.

The latest among the several casualties suffered in recent times is an officer and four soldiers injured in an accident last February. Five soldiers suffering serious injuries should be an incident enough to invite serious attention. Consider the following. Many more soldiers were wounded, 17 of them seriously when about 20, defective anti-tank mines packed with about , kg of TNT caught fire and caused a massive explosion.

The Army was awaiting a decision for repair or demolition of these anti-tank mines since since many of the mines had been exuding TNT from their plastic bodies. It is unknown whether responsibility was ever fixed. Then five months after the Army wrote this letter, another blast involving defective 23 mm Shilka anti-aircraft ammunition occurred in the very same CAD.

This time six persons comprising a soldier, an OF employee and four labourers were killed, while between 10 and 18 persons were reportedly injured. Indeed, defective ammunition supplied by the OFB has been a longstanding problem and at any given time the Army is in possession of between 15, to 20, tonnes of segregated ammunition. The impact is obvious: It has been causing deaths and injuries, an adverse impact on operational preparedness, a major monetary loss to the state, resulted in delays in replacement and occupying large amounts of storage space, while imposing a serious safety hazard.

The inordinately long time it takes to investigate supply of defective ammunition and to take a decision adds to the problem. The fact is that incidents and adverse observations regarding defective ammunition and the functioning of the OFs is well documented.

The following few random examples should be demonstrative enough. Fourteen years ago a report prepared by the Comptroller and Auditor General CAG in had observed that 18 of 47 items of ammunition, weapons and heavy vehicles had quality problems and that between and the Army has reported a total 3, defects in OFB supplied products.

This was subsequently proven in the and blasts at Pulgaon. Then again, replying to a question in Parliament in , the Minister of State Defence Production acknowledged deficiencies in the supply of ammunition for small arms, rifles, machine guns and tanks. A more scathing observation was made in a more recent CAG report tabled in Parliament in , which examined the performance of OFs between and