No matter your position at your company, have you ever asked yourself, “What are the key elements that drive outstanding performance?” Certainly, having good products and processes are among those important elements but that’s only two legs of a three-legged stool and without that third leg the stool will topple.
Manufacturers typically use two different techniques to assess part conformance and process control: either in-process gaging or final inspection. In-process gaging is measuring the part while it is still in the process of being manufactured and using that data to, sometimes, adjust the process, other times for part conformance.
The first step to process improvement is machine performance measurement and diagnosis. However, it’s a step that many OEMs and service providers—even quality professionals—fail to approach with as much rigor as other steps, like process setting and in-process control.
In business it’s easy to become complacent. Manufacturers can fall prey to continually repeating the same mistakes, disrupting production and damaging profitability.
You can’t escape the buzzwords. The Internet of Things. The Industrial Internet of Things. Edge Computing. Industry 4.0. Big. Data. Every practitioner has their own, slightly different definition of what these terms mean—a fuzzy cloud of vague meaning.
Multi-vari and pre-control charts in our final Shainin column.
March 1, 2018
Multi-vari charts are a useful tool for presenting analysis of variance data in graphical form. They can identify patterns of variation, on a single chart, from many causes.
In the 1980’s the concept of data collection for process control took a major leap forward. This was about the time that a combination of electronic technology and economics allowed gaging to become digital.