Implementation of Seven Quality Tools for Improving Bottled Drinking Water Product Quality

Abstract

The bottled drinking water industry requires consistent product quality to maintain customer satisfaction, production efficiency, and consumer safety. However, production defects such as leaking bottles, loose caps, tilted labels, damaged packaging, and inconsistent filling volumes frequently occur and can negatively affect company performance. Therefore, effective quality control methods are needed to identify dominant defects and determine appropriate corrective actions. This study aimed to implement Seven Quality Tools to analyze product quality problems and propose improvement strategies in bottled drinking water production. This research used a quantitative descriptive approach. Data were collected through direct observation, interviews, and defect recording during 15 production days. The analysis was conducted using Seven Quality Tools, including check sheets, histograms, Pareto charts, scatter diagrams, control charts, fishbone diagrams, and flowcharts. These tools were used to identify dominant defects, analyze root causes, and evaluate process stability. The results showed that tilted labels and leaking bottles were the most dominant defects, contributing more than half of the total defect occurrences. The control chart analysis indicated that the production process was statistically under control, although fluctuations in defects were still observed during high production periods. The fishbone diagram revealed that defects were influenced by human, method, environment, material, machine, and policy factors. Improvement efforts such as routine operator training, regular machine maintenance, stricter implementation of standard operating procedures, and continuous quality improvement programs are recommended to reduce defect rates and improve product quality consistency.