Quality assurance of a maker-packer model

This paper studies a maker-packer production system in cigarette manufacturing where two different types of detectors are installed on the making and packing machines to maintain the product quality. The making machine detector has a continuously adjustable setting which determines the proportion of defective cigarettes removed. The packing machine detector has only discrete settings. The paper develops an economic model to derive the optimal settings for these detectors to achieve a specified average outgoing quality. The proposed maker-packer model is useful in other industries.