The variation of the film thickness and associated increase in cost are vital problems to computer connector producers. However, no scientific adjustment method is currently available. Transfer function and engineering process control are proposed to adjust the production processes for improving the quality of the metallic film of the connectors and reducing the cost of production. The analyses of the confirmatory experiments from using the two proposed approaches show significant gains in quality improvement and cost reduction. Furthermore, the engineering process control approach reveals a better improvement over the transfer function approach. Thus this approach is recommended to improve the quality of the film thickness and reduce the production cost in the computer connector industry (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.