Those of us on the march towards Quality 4.0 in our manufacturing companies are grappling with the challenge of producing high quality parts with a minimal investment of time and resources into new inspection methodologies. Additionally, there’s the overwhelming data management aspect. How do we know that it’s “good” data? Where is the data stored? How can we best present it to our customers, quality system auditors, and internal staff? Those are just a few of the driving questions and issues surrounding data and automating the quality function. Until recently, there were way too many individual pieces of software crunching data from machines, devices, instruments, and gages and storing it in independent, disconnected folders housed in a myriad of places, including desk drawers! Here’s the good news: software solutions are available now that truly streamline inspection and measurement data and even go beyond that functionality.
At the risk of this sounding too elementary, like a Quality 101 workshop, let’s review why an understanding of manufacturing process data and managing it is important. For new technicians who are coming into industry daily, these fundamentals are important to grasp. It’s also helpful for us seasoned veterans to get a refresher now and then: The ultimate benefit for a company to understand and house the minutia of its processes is improved profitability. Wider profit margins stem from machining and operational efficiencies that come about from continuous improvement tweaks. We learn what needs to be fixed from the data as we learn how the process is trending over time. Making components better, cheaper, and faster leads to improved deliveries and satisfied customers who likely come back to us again and again.