Earphone terminal quality improvement through sequential experimental design

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to improve the key quality performance of the terminal of earphone in an electronic company. Design/methodology/approach – Sequential experimental designs are employed. Significant input variables are found through a full factorial design. Then a response surface model is constructed considering curvature in the linear model. Findings – Optimized key input variables’ parameters are found using the response surface model. The key quality performance, coplanarity of the terminal of earphone has been improved. Research limitations/implications – Instead of running a full factorial design in the first stage, a fractional factorial may be used to reduce experimental runs. Practical implications – The paper presents a good solution for reducing defects caused by large coplanarity of a kind of earphone terminal. Originality/value – The methodology used in this case can be easily extended to similar cases.