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BEST PRACTICES

Appreciation for Quality Conformance


In many organizations, the responsibility for product quality on the production oor is unclear. It gains attention only when the situation becomes serious. Then the people started questioning, who is responsible for quality?
A focus on product quality results in customer delight thereby repeat business and referrals. But one should know that a focus on customer delight must be balanced by a focus on the bottom line of the Prot and Loss account, as well. A smile on the customer face is one of the indexes of quality management success all the way through supply chain. The smooth and high speed ow of products or services or information is great but it will create a smooth and high speed ow of cash as well. This cash ow will denitely impact bottom line unless we have process improvements in place. As R Sai Krishna Rayalu
Dy GM Quality, Indo MIM

3. Reducing internal rejection If we are not getting the above results, then we need to ask why and start investigating the problem, then apply simple quality improvement tool PDCA, plan, do, check and act. To carry out continuous improvement cycle, rst we should know the status of our process against the pre-determined standards and instructions. To know the status of our manufacturing process, we have a tool known as audit. Auditing was misunderstood as an undervalued profession in the earlier years. When we hear about the word audit, we usually think of tax man and nancial audits. But very few people know that there is an entire world of internal auditing and another world of quality auditing, which has nothing to do with
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you know that process improvements result in : 1. Reducing cost of manufacturing

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2. Increasing eciency & eectiveness across organization

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their own quality performance and performance of their suppliers. Traditionally, quality system audits have focused on those activities which have a direct connection with the product or services provided to external customer. Quality audits are branched into the following three types further, health & safety audit was added to this list, in the recent times. Following is the list of the taxes and very little to do with nancial auditing. What is Quality Auditing? A quality audit is an independent review conducted to compare some aspect of quality performance with a standard for that performance. Quality audits are performed by organizations to evaluate general audits that are performed across the manufacturing Industry: 1. Quality System audits 2. Safety audits 3. Product audits 4. Process audits What is a quality system Audit? This is a systematic, independent examination and evaluation, to determine whether quality activities and results comply with planned arrangements and whether these arrangements are implemented eectively and are suitable

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world and each one have their separate quality system requirements to follow. For example, automotive industry quality system requirements are dierent from medical, Aero space, Food & Beverages etc. Each industry has laid down their own specic system requirements to regulate the work ow at supplier end that ensures product quality. There are for achieving pre-dened objectives. In other words, it is a review of an activity. The specic purpose of the quality system audit is to provide an independent assurance that, 1. Plans for attaining quality are such that, if followed, the intended quality will, in fact, be attained 2. Products are t for use and safe for the user 3. Standards and regulations dened by government agencies, industry associations, and professional societies are being followed 4. There is conformance to specications 5. Procedures are adequate and are being followed 6. The data system provides accurate and adequate information on quality to all concerned 7. Deciencies are identied and corrective actions are taken 8. Opportunities for improvement are identied and the appropriate personnel alerted The audits are directed at the quality aspects of various segments of the overall systematic approach to quality such as design, manufacturing, supplier quality etc. It is a system oriented audit review of any system over a whole range of products. There are many industries around the An audit is a review to conrm that regulations, processes or rules are being followed. A health and safety audit is an audit that focuses on some or all aspects of health and safety. It is a review performed to determine whether health and safety regulations and company policies (and sometimes recognized good practice) are being adequately implemented and complied with. What is a Product Audit? Product audit is an independent evaluation of product quality to determine tness for use and conformance to specication. Product audit takes place after inspections have been completed. The purpose of product auditing include: enough certication bodies available around the world, for certication of the organizational quality system standards. They verify the compliance of organization systems with relevant applicable implied and stated quality standards. What is a Safety Audit? 1. Estimating the quality level as delivered to customers 2. Evaluating the eectiveness of the inspection decision in determining conformance to specication. 3. Providing information useful in improving the outgoing product quality level and improving the eectiveness of specication 4. Providing additional assurance beyond routine inspection activities What is a Process Audit? A process audit is an audit of a process against validated and agreed parameters on requirements. It involves verication by evaluation of an operation or method against predetermined work ow instructions or stated and implied standards by external and internal customers. It measures conformance to these standards and the effectiveness of the instructions. A process audit may check conformance to dened requirements such as time, accuracy, temperature, pressure, composition, responsiveness, amperage and component mixture. It may involve special processes such as heat treating, soldering, plating,

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conformance and the employee is given with appreciation card that is designed and signed by top management as token of appreciation to his adherence and conformance to quality systems and work instructions. Following is a brief explanation about the criteria that we choose to give appreciation card. During the regular process audits, auditors were asked to record the observaencapsulation, welding and nondestructive examination. A process audit examines the resources (equipment, materials and people) used to transform the inputs into outputs, the environment, the methods (procedures and instructions) followed and the measures collected to determine process performance. A process audit checks the adequacy and eectiveness of the process controls established by procedures, work instructions, owcharts, training and process specications. A process audit is an evaluation of the sequential steps and interactions of a process within a system. The term is also used to describe techniques used when conducting an audit. For example, an auditor may use process audit techniques during a management system audit. Obviously the outcome of all these audits would turn to an NCR, Non-conformance report. We, at Indo-MIM, conduct regular process/ system/ safety audits and raise NCR to the concerned shop oor personnel on regular basis. A thought came up during one of our internal reviews, that why should we give only NCRs after auditing and why not give appreciation to the people who always follow or adhere to the work instructions and implied standards. Here we used the creative operator known as Reverse and come up with AppreciaBelow is the example of the Appreciation card. tion Card concept. Concept: The concept what we at Indo-MIM adopted, is to use the creative operator Reverse, i.e. Appreciate the employees who are disciplined in following engineering work instruction, SOP, safety etc, on the manufacturing shop oor instead of issuing non-conformance reports. As you know that NCR (nonconformance report) is negative or fault nding approach, we reversed it to positive so as to encourage to accomplish conformance on all the activities that are related to product quality and services. We named it as appreciation to quality 3. Carry out the measurement activities as per specied frequency in the control plan. 4. Follows stated & implied safety practices, instructions and standards. 5. Maintain 5S at his/ her work place. 6. Maintain discipline at work place. 7. Punctual to the work. tion about the people on the following criteria: 1. Manufacture the products as per work instructions. 2. Run the machines as per control plan parameters.

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8. Advocate similar practices with his/ her co- employees. Based on the auditors recommendation and further review on the furnished data, the identied employee will be awarded with appreciation card by his immediate supervisor in the presence of the his co-employees. After implementing this in the manufacturing shop oor, the motivational level of employees was raised to a great extent. Benets: 1. Creates positive atmosphere in the shop oor. 2. Improves product yields. 3. Improves control of non-conforming products.

Appreciation card presentation to shop oor employee

4. Reduces rework. 5. Improves the process capability. 6. Increases the productivity. 7. Helped the individuals to understand

the power of positive thinking and attitude. The author R Sai Krishna Rayalu Dy GM Quality, Indo MIM can be contacted at saikrishna.r@indo-mim.com

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