Level: Advanced
Job Function: Analyst / Scientist / Engineer
Industry: Manufacturing
Beatrice Blum, Senior Statistician, Procter & Gamble
Henning Vohwinkel, Senior Product Developer, Procter & Gamble
Sanitary pads consist of different layers of raw material which are joined in a continuous production process. Various technologies are available to bond the top layer with the bottom layer. The requirement profile for the bonding is to keep the pad intact throughout the entire wearing cycle, even in extreme conditions. Additionaly, the pad's flexibility and softness should be retained at the same time. The case study discussed here will describe an attempt to combine two existing bonding technologies – gluing and thermoplastic fusion – in such a way that the finished pad remains stress-resistant while continuing to feel pleasant on the skin. We will explain what different study design approaches we investigated, which constraints we had to respect, which performance targets we wanted to meet and why we chose to run a DSD eventually. Furthermore, we will discuss the DSD model building and our final production process settings for the desired target.
