Last month, I took my two-year-old son to his first dental appointment and I got to see first-hand how this dentist leverages quality in his practice.
When we arrived at the dentist’s waiting area, my son and I were greeted by name before we reached the counter. The receptionist was kind, the waiting area was sunny, and they had high-quality toys and a cool fish tank that kept my busy-body son mesmerized until his appointment.
When it was our turn, we went back to the examining room where my son and I sat on the floor with the dental assistant. She took each of the dental instruments and showed them to my son. She explained how each instrument worked and how she was going to use each one on his teeth. I don’t know how much he understood, but he had a fun time watching and playing with those instruments that I found frightening as a kid.
By now, most test engineers have recognized both HALT, or Highly Accelerated Life Testing, and HASS, or Highly Accelerated Stress Screening, as the quickest, most effective new standards for design verification and testing (DVT) and production screenings. However, the impact of these new testing methods is now starting to reach into the boardroom to awaken C-level executives to the fact that HALT and HASS also translate into highly accelerated income.
Over the past several years, manufacturing systems have been moving to an unprecedented level of connectivity, intersystem integration, cooperation and collaboration. Production facilities can no longer afford to think and operate autonomously. Today, the organizational boundaries among sister plants, headquarters personnel, customers, suppliers and business partners are far less distinct.
However, traditional networked quality applications are not sufficient to support a globally focused enterprise. The wave of the future demands an entirely new architectural approach that spans both Windows® systems and Web services.
By integrating 3-D CAD-based vision inspection with conventional tactile probing, Accu-Tech Inc. (Detroit), a contract measurement lab, has broadened the range of parts it can measure with unimpeachable accuracy. In addition, this approach has improved measurement productivity, allowing the company to gain a competitive edge and provide its customers with faster turnaround on critical parts. What made this possible was a new kind of coordinate measuring machine (CMM)-like vision software (PC-DMIS Vision), which can be used on both conventional vision and multi-sensor measurement equipment.
Can lasting improvement come about as a result of quick and readily apparent changes, or does it only come about as a result of well thought-out and substantive decisions? Many professionals find themselves in such challenging positions within their companies. Such is the struggle for Ford Motor Co. as it tries to revive sagging North American sales and a correct a perception of poorly made domestic brand vehicles.
Much like it takes the commitment and dedication of an entire team to win the Super Bowl, World Series, NBA Finals or Stanley Cup, it takes the same tireless effort throughout a company to achieve quality.
The mantra is changing from senior management must buy into quality to everyone must buy in to the quality program. Teamwork is prevalent at the top five companies in this year’s Quality Leadership 100-Quality Bolt & Screw Co., Wieland Designs, HCC Inc., Thule Inc. and Paulo Products Co. As a matter of fact, HCC Inc.’s motto is “excellence through teamwork.”
From manufacturers to hospitals to the military, most organizations need standard operating procedures (SOPs) for a variety of reasons. An SOP describes a procedure and tells an operator how to perform it. SOPs are helpful in most workplace settings, but they are particularly critical for organizations with process-oriented operations, such as life sciences and other manufacturing companies. SOPs, in conjunction with personnel training, help relay knowledge from one department to another. In a medical device firm, for example, research and development scientists pass their knowledge about a product they innovated to the manufacturing department through SOPs.
As integral as machine vision has become to such industries as food and beverage packaging, printing and automotive parts, industry analysts projected its across-the-board growth in the manufacturing sector through 2006 at about 9% annually.
Quality professionals need to address the problem of short-term focus on profits by shifting to improvement methods that give short-term results.
The main reason that so few organizations fully utilize quality improvement methods is because they have a short-term focus in their business. For the quality profession to meet its full potential and play a strategic role in organizations, it needs to listen to its customer-top management-and start developing and offering quality improvement methods that show short-term results.
By the time you read this column, the North American International Auto Show will be complete. Two stories from the show point to the state of the U.S. auto industry and the role China may play in the global automotive market.
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