Discovering the underlying factors that influence compliance, product quality, production efficiency and your performance as a supplier requires greater accuracy and precision than many manufacturing metrics provide. Too often, the reason that return material authorizations, customer rejects, product returns, and a supplier’s quality incoming levels are fluctuating are explained with anecdotal observations and incomplete data sets that lack repeatability and reproducibility.
Manufacturers can significantly improve their visibility into operations through gage repeatability and reproducibility (GR&R) studies. However, in the quest for growth, many manufacturers lack the time to excel at tool and gage measurement. These businesses are facing severe time shortages, and it’s common to see production centers running two and three shifts to accommodate the short production run their customers need. As a result, the time required to manage tooling and gages often is sacrificed to provide customers the flexibility and short-notice production support they need while keeping orders on schedule.