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In December of 1998, NASA launched the Mars Climate Orbiter, a robotic space probe intended as the communications relay for the Mars Polar Lander. By September of 1999, the spacecraft had disintegrated after coming too close to Mars and passing into its upper atmosphere.
As of September 14, 2018, ISO/TS 16949 certificates will no longer be valid, requiring automotive suppliers to certify to the new version, IATF 16949. Transition audits are underway and will continue into next year, but many companies still have a long way to go to prepare.
Let’s look at some of the biggest challenges companies are facing, including new requirements that could trip you up and how to efficiently document compliance.
Quality professionals are the unsung heroes of manufacturing. Your top goal is reducing defects and improving quality, and yet sometimes it feels like all you get is resistance.
Taking the time to do things right can impact production targets, often meaning that quality is only valuable to the point that it reduces defects to tolerable levels. In many cases, you’re also contending with inefficient systems focused more on reacting to problems than preventing them.
If you’re facing these roadblocks and wondering how you can make your mark, a layered process audit (LPA) program is a high-return initiative that can help you do it.
If you could reduce defects by half in just a few months, what would that mean for your company?
It’s possible with a layered process audit (LPA) program, but the complexity involved with these audits means many companies don’t leverage their full potential. With LPAs, every layer of management participates in daily checks of high-risk processes. It’s a tall order for many organizations, requiring a solid plan and a prepared team.
The 2017 Beacon User Summit convened auto and aerospace manufacturers looking to trade strategies on creating a culture of quality and using layered process audit (LPA) software.
One of the most interesting sessions was a customer panel discussion on how companies are leveraging LPAs to improve quality. To help you learn from their expertise, we’ve distilled the discussion into the top best practices for companies looking to implement LPAs.
(image by http://caeventphotos.com/)
Layered process audits (LPAs) are a powerful strategy for helping auto and aerospace suppliers achieve their quality goals. At the same time, LPAs are also one of the most involved types of audits.
In an LPA program, different layers of the organization participate in daily checks of processes known to impact product quality. These checks catch process errors upstream, reducing variation to minimize scrap, rework and customer returns.
Because of the high frequency of audits, companies often find it difficult to leverage the full potential of LPA programs. How do you know if you’re ready for LPAs? It all depends on your motivation, leadership engagement and a willingness to automate your processes. Let’s look at these elements more in depth.
While it’s often thought to be much lower, multiple sources have measured quality-related costs at 10 to 20% or more of an organization’s annual revenue. Put simply, that means a company with $1 billion in annual revenue loses $100 million or more from its bottom line as a price for quality.
It’s a huge number, a fact recognized by companies heavily invested in Lean, Six Sigma and other operational excellence initiatives. And while results of these programs are often reported as savings over several years, layered process audit (LPA) programs are simple and effective enough to drive big results in a matter of months.
LPAs require checking high-risk processes as often as every shift, drawing auditors from every layer of the organization. Automation is key to achieving this frequency with minimal overhead, reducing quality costs, improving visibility and developing a culture of quality.
For decades, audit management has centered on paper checklists, with tracking moving to Excel spreadsheets in more recent years. Despite growing adoption of cloud-based manufacturing software, many auto suppliers still rely on paper checklists and spreadsheets to manage audit programs.
In 2016, the International Automotive Task Force (IATF) published IATF 16949, which replaced the popular ISO/TS 16949 used in over 62,000 facilities globally.
IATF 16949 certification is required for all automotive suppliers, and with compliance deadlines coming up, the countdown is on for companies to make the transition.
As you prepare, you’ll want to educate yourself about the new changes, assess any gaps in your process, and create an implementation plan that addresses them. Documenting compliance can be one of the biggest hurdles for companies - an area where automated audit platforms can have a big impact.
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