Beacon Quality Blog

Equipment downtime gets expensive fast in automotive and aerospace manufacturing, a risk many companies try to mitigate by storing spare parts onsite. A machine breaks down, haul out the parts and hopefully you’re back in business with minimal disruption.

The problem is, manufacturers get so wrapped up in hitting production targets that they don’t stop to ask why the machine went down in the first place.

The result? The equipment goes down again, whether two days, two weeks or two months later, causing additional downtime because the “corrective” action was never designed to last.

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What sets apart the top 20% of innovation leaders from their competitors? According to LNS Research, one key difference is that a majority (52%) of the top tier has real-time visibility into manufacturing quality metrics, compared to just 9% of the competition .

Organizations collect quality data in a variety of ways, including audits. For companies struggling with quality problems, audits themselves can stand in the way of identifying and fixing the underlying causes.

How is this possible when audits are meant to shine a light on your processes? Common barriers include reactive auditing methods, low audit frequency and data integrity issues.

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Section 9.2.2.3 of General Motors (GM) IATF 16949 customer-specific requirements states,

“The organization shall incorporate an internal layered process audit process to assess compliance to standardized processes, to identify opportunities for continuous improvement, and to provide coaching opportunities.”

Layered process audits (LPAs) provide daily checks of high-risk processes and known customer issues, involving all layers of the organization and holding management accountable for quality. GM lists just nine elements in its IATF 16949 customer-specific requirements, but those few lines pack a huge punch in terms of their impact on supplier operations.

Suppliers must also read between those lines to earn or maintain IATF certification, addressing areas like management participation, corrective action verification and key performance indicator (KPI) tracking.

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Famous businessman Robert Half once said, “Asking the right questions takes as much skill as giving the right answers.”

It’s true whether we’re talking about interviewing and hiring—Half founded one of the largest global staffing firms—or whether we’re talking about quality management. The need to ask thoughtful questions to gain valuable information is especially critical when it comes to creating layered process audit (LPA) checklists.

In an LPA program, multiple layers of management audit high-risk processes at varying intervals, conducting daily checks that systematically reduce variation. These process audits are powerful because of their high frequency, and their ability to provide a real-time snapshot of shop floor processes critical to quality.

As for whether a company can achieve the biggest benefits from LPAs? That all depends on whether you have well-written questions—and how frequently you update them.

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First, the good news: You've just landed a contract with a major automaker, an opportunity that promises to be a huge game-changer for your organization.

Now the not-so-good news: the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) requires you to implement a layered process audit (LPA) program across your plant. LPAs are a sub-type of process audits that apply multiple layers of checks to process inputs known to affect quality. LPAs verify that operators are following standard procedures every shift to minimize variation, defects and costs.

Implementing these high-frequency audits is a condition of doing business with leading automotive OEMs, but they also build the foundation for quality culture. Here we discuss the main steps of implementation, including planning your LPA program, conducting audits and ongoing improvement.

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If you needed to complete 200 audits this month, would your quality team be able to handle it alone? For most companies, the answer is no, and it’s one reason why companies new to layered process audit (LPA) programs struggle.

LPAs are a type of high-frequency process audit involving all layers of management, from team leads to executives. Repeat checks of high-risk processes prevent defects and foster continuous improvement, providing the best results when companies draw auditors from across the organization.

In our experience, however, not all companies find it easy to get other departments involved. Let’s take a look at why cross-functional teams are so important to LPAs, plus some strategies for increasing participation.

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We are excited to announce the newest Beacon updates designed to help teams improve global quality controls. The 1.11 release includes better control over who is notified of non-conformances, accommodation of schedules as complex as the DuPont rotating shifts, reassigning audits to available people, single sign-on support, and enhanced control and reporting for global organizations.

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The Ease Beacon assessment platform enables manufacturers and service providers to meet the increasingly complex demands of the connected world while also lowering their cost of quality.

We are excited to announce the newest Beacon updates designed to help teams improve global quality controls. The 1.8 release includes several enhancements to help managers better filter data, provides improved import/export capabilities, enhances group audit scheduling, and streamlines reporting requirements. Beacon 1.8 also includes more control features for audit administration with improved navigation for a more fluid experience within the application. 

Continue reading below to learn more about the specific feature enhancements. 

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We are happy to announce that within the next few days we’ll be releasing version 1.5 of Beacon. The release has several new features which are detailed in our release notes, but the interface has also received some big updates so we wanted to let you know in advance. It’s important that we mention that we’re not fans of “change for change’s sake”, but these changes are well worth it. We re-evaluated our navigation menu and overall site structure to make the Beacon experience more consistent, but also to prepare for a number of big new features we have coming soon.

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