About half of you have come into some money within the past three months, and another group of you will come into money during the first month of 2008. No, I’m not talking about winning the lottery or the holiday bonus. The money I’m talking about is your company’s annual budget.
I continue to be surprised when the subject of calibration costs comes up. Why? Because so many folks think they are getting a bargain when someone offers a calibration report for $10 when the rest of the industry charges somewhere around $35 for the same thing. Or is it the same thing?
Corporations have been striving for manufacturing excellence through continuous improvement, Six Sigma and Lean-type methodologies. There are scenarios that as companies improve their process-reduce their defect levels, for example-they increase the level of inspection or checks. As a result, the savings a company might realize in the improvement activity could be countered by additional verification resources. Of course, when we redesign the process, then we simplify the process and eliminate some unnecessary process steps. In most cases the inspections and verifications stay put.
Honeywell’s Waterford facility, Honeywell Engines, designs and manufactures turbofan, turboprop and turboshaft propulsion engines for a variety of commercial and military applications. The facility uses approximately 2,900 gages, each requiring regular calibration and accurate calibration records.
Quincy Compressor (Bay Minette, AL), an Enpro Industries company, manufactures air compressors and vacuum pumps used in manufacturing plants, hospitals and climate control systems. When tasked with living up to its quality reputation, Quincy Compressor further challenged itself to reach a higher level of success through a corporate-wide lean enterprise strategy called “Total Customer Value” (TCV).
Pull systems, one-piece flow, elimination of waste-these are the concepts most often discussed when lean is the topic. Quality at the Source, on the other hand, is rarely front and center when lean improvement efforts are presented.
Even though improved quality is a common outcome of lean transformations every day, the glamorous lean concepts and tools seem to get all the attention. However, just as 5S systems are credited with productivity improvements of up to 10%, Quality at the Source (QATS) can produce dramatic quality improvements in short order.
Quality is on the rise, according to Quality Magazine’s 8th Annual Spending Survey conducted by Clear Seas Research. Compared to three years ago, 66% of respondents said that quality has an increased importance or the highest importance and that they are aggressively pursuing top quality performance.
Implementing statistical process control (SPC) takes energy and resources, so companies had better be able to show a financial benefit for having done it. But how do they show this benefit before implementation? And how do they do that without hearing the coconut-like sounds of heads hitting desks?
The main goal of quality improvement is improved profitability. Greater quality reduces manufacturing costs due to lower scrap levels, less rework and reduced raw material costs. It also increases customer satisfaction because of the quality level itself and faster deliveries, thereby increasing demand for the company’s products. For these reasons, high quality can provide a competitive advantage.
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