Determination of Optimum Vulcanization Process Parameters Using Taguchi GRA for Reducing Quality Loss

Two of the several critical to quality characteristics (CTQs) of rubber outsole are tensile strength and slip resistance. The rubber outsole vulcanization process has three processing parameters, namely mold temperature, mold pressure, and holding time. In order to obtain the maximum tensile strength and slip resistance, it is necessary to conduct multi-objective optimization to determine the correct levels of the vulcanization processing parameters. In the present study, an integration of grey relational analysis and Taguchi method was implemented using an experimental design of L-9 Orthogonal Array with 3 (three) replications for each experimental unit. The experimental results showed that the multi-objective optimization successfully enhanced tensile strength and slip resistance in the rubber outsole vulcanization process. The maximum tensile strength and slip resistance could be obtained by setting mold temperature at 155 degrees C, mold pressure at 90 bar, and holding time at 2 minutes. The optimized process parameters could reduce the cost of quality loss by 29.79%.