QFD Analysis of RSRM Aqueous Cleaners

This paper presents a Quality Function Deployment (QFD) analysis of the h a l down-selected aqueous cleaners to be used on the Redesigned Solid Rocket Motor (RSRM) program. The new cleaner will replace solvent vapor degreasing. The RSRM Ozone Depleting Compound Elimination program is discontinuing the methyl chloroform vapor degreasing process and replacing it with a spray-in-air aqueous cleaning process. Previously, 15 cleaners were down-selected to two candidates by passing screening tests involving toxicity, flammability, cleaning efficiency, contaminant solubility, corrosion potential, cost, and bond strength. The two down-selected cleaners were further evaluated with more intensive testing and evaluated using QFD techniques to assess suitability for cleaning RSRM case and nozzle surfaces in preparation for adhesive bonding. INTRODUCTION Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is a team method to plan and design new or improved products, processes, orservices. The design is based upon customer requirements and the approach is to do it right the first time and document what you are doing and thinkhg. The concept was first proposed in 1966 by Yoji Akao, vice president of the Japan Society for Quality Control and professor of industrial engineering at Tamagawa University in Tokyo, Japan. The purpose of QFD was spawned from the need to find a way to get production to grasp the notion of quality assurance at the stage of planning before going into production. This notion was later named "concurrent engineering." QFD was introduced in 1972 by Aka0 at the Kobe shipyards of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to coordinate the logistics for building complex supertanker cargo ships. The technique developed further sophistication at Toyota and has gained worldwide acceptance as a powerful product planning method in numerous industrial and Service sectors. Rocketdyne' used QFD to redeign a fuel turbopump for a heavy-lift launch vehicle, Thiokol uses QFD on the RSRM program to the point that a QFD training course2 was developed, and NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) has prepared a technical pape? to encowage NASA wide usage of the technique. The strategy of QFD is to focus development and improvement activities on the customer, Multidisciplinary teams are used to arrive at decisions by consensus. This approach allows customer requirements to be deployed from *features to characteristics to operations to requirements. It provides a framework for concurrent engineering. Documentation is simple and consistent, and results in a optimum design that allows qualitative requirements to be converted in measurable activities, -. Thiokdengineering is using the technique to assist in the down-selection of new processes as a result of the Montreal Protocol ban on certain ozone depleting chemicals. The schedule for implementation is short and the task is awesome; perfect reasons to use QFD.