A New Way to Evaluate Job Shop Quality

Recently we held our quarterly Quality System Review for last quarter. Like thousands of job shops across the US, we reviewed customer complaints, customer returns, internal quality trends and past corrective actions.  Many of those companies, including ours, have recurring system issues that are addressed at the part level or customer level, but persist at the macro level.  Sometimes it is easier to record a “win” on fixing a customer issue and leave the systemic issue for another time.  Other times, the cost to fix the issue systemically is too much for the customers to bear.  I think there is a better way.

First, we need to agree that there are different kinds of job shops. Some shops have a few key customers, but lots of variability in the part numbers they produce.  I call these “captive job shops”.  Quality is simplified to address the few key customer concerns, so it is easier to maintain.  This is why some large OEMs prefer to have a large percentage at a few job shops.  Other shops have a narrow skills set and serve a broad array of customers.  I call these “focused job shops.”  Their quality system is all about maintaining/improving their unique process and this hyper focus has made their reputation.  Lastly there are the “high-mix job shops” that have either had to diversify for economic survival or they are expanding beyond their unique focus.  This is where the opportunity exists.

At ETM, we are clearly a high-mix job shop. In some years 90% of the parts we made were new builds.  Imagine placing 90% of your PO’s to different suppliers or designing 90% of your parts for new countries.  The complexity can get very scary when you think about it.  The good shops focus on process control at the floor level – controlling consistency through uniform programming standards, forming conventions and welding practices.  The best shops focus on process control for the information processes as well as the material conversation processes.  At ETM, we aspire to be the among the best sheet metal shops in New England.  To do that, we need a new way to evaluate shop quality.

This year the management at ETM is reviewing our information and material processes daily with a weekly report out to our entire company. We do this with our top 20 processes starting with prospecting and finishing with collections.  Our first step is to monitor the health of our system – much like your car’s CPU is continually checking your oil, engine temp, lights, brakes, etc.  When an ETM process starts to falter, a signal turns on (in this case a warning flag on our communication board).  During our weekly company meeting we talk about the warning signal and the probable cause.  Other people in the company can check to see if the issue in one area will affect them to take proactive action.  We can also brainstorm solutions if the process owner gets stuck.

Like any system, we expect this to get better and better over time with steady attention. When the ETM system is maintaining a “green” status for several weeks, despite the changes in our product mix, we’ll begin improving our weakest process and watch to see how it affects our other processes.  The result will be better quality for every customer in every situation.  How does that sound?

from ETM Manufacturing http://etmmfg.com/3624