Beacon Quality Blog

As one of the world’s largest automakers, General Motors (GM) must continually look for ways to increase value and reduce waste throughout its supply chain. Like many manufacturers, they are under pressure to keep ahead of the increasing challenge to meet demands for ever better, faster and cheaper products.

Following the unprecedented recall problems of the past few years, GM put some of their best and brightest minds together to develop new strategies that include their suppliers as one aspect of a multi-prong quality improvement initiative.

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Whether it’s due to the Internet of Things (IoT) or simply the remarkable decline in cost, companies are rushing to equip their employees with smart mobile devices or allowing them to bring their own device to access work systems. Manufacturing has tended to lag in this area, but as devices have become cheaper and more rugged, this area has seen an influx of smart devices as well, and they are playing a crucial role in plant operations. In fact, a recent joint study by LNS Research and MESA International showed that 54 percent of plant supervisors and 53 percent of plant managers could expect to use mobile devices to supply all of the needed information to fulfill their job responsibilities.

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A recent Wall Street Journal article detailing how Boeing is facing up to 24 million dollars in FAA penalties over quality control going back several years across a number of locations shows how even the biggest manufacturers need to close the loop on quality control (QC). Closing the QC loop requires a two-way flow of information across functions that enable end-to-end visibility into quality across the value chain.

This can only be done when quality functions such as document control, compliance management, nonconformance/corrective and preventive actions (NC/CAPA), audit management, and others are integrated across critical business processes. It may be clear on the surface to manufacturers that moving beyond the concept of a bi-directional connection of people, processes, and data across the value chain is paramount to success in the manufacturing sector. That being said, the hard work of achieving that goal starts with understanding the benefits and the challenges of a closed loop approach to quality control.

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In a manufacturing environment, it’s common for teams to run into Murphy’s Law - the notion that “anything that can go wrong, will.” A simple day that starts with an employee calling in sick, can escalate through other events such as a workstation running out of parts, a machine shutting down for unknown reasons, or similar issues which result in missing production targets for the week.

In order to minimize risks, plants should use a Layered Process Audit (LPA) program to ensure that the most important controls to prevent defects and waste are in place.  But with so many things that can go wrong, where do you start?  

One great tool to consider is Process-FMEA (Failure Mode and Effects Analysis). Teams that are looking to start a Layered Process Audit (LPA) program often have a long standing practice of doing PFMEA to determine their areas of high risk and frequent failures. Teams can use the Risk Priority Number (RPN) calculated from PFMEA as the basis for focus areas to prioritize when developing LPA questions.

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In manufacturing, leaders innovate and grow while followers fall prey to inefficiency and waste. A recent report from the Aberdeen Group, Lean Manufacturing: Success Starts with Visibility and Alignment, describes how manufacturing leaders consistently benefit from having tools in place to track continuous improvement activities. In addition, 61% of these high performers provide management with a comprehensive, easy-to-understand view into operations. These results reinforce the truth that lean principles are only as good as the actionable data available, and it follows that organizational integration of manufacturing software solutions is key to process improvement.

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Historically, business executives have viewed manufacturing plants as cost centers because they are units that do not produce profit directly, but instead add to the operational costs of the organization. Increasingly, however, more business leaders are daring to challenge that paradigm by stating a case to recognize manufacturing units as profit centers. This, of course, has raised eyebrows.

The shift from the narrower perspective of the manufacturing plant as a cost center into a profit driver is supported in part by concepts from the balanced scorecard approach developed by Robert Kaplan and David Norton nearly 25 years ago. More than a measurement tool, the balanced scorecard is a management system. By bringing together measures that are focused on internal processes and external outcomes, the balanced scorecard promotes continuous improvement through strategic performance and results.

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“Try not to make 5S a goal in itself. … Focus instead on the leadership part, building the right discipline and culture in your organization towards the objective of 5S: Create, maintain, and improve an efficient workplace organization with high levels of visual control.” Torbjørn Netland, Associate Professor, Department of Industrial Economics and Technology Management, Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Those are words of wisdom from an in-depth article on 5S entitled “5S – We Are Doing It Wrong” by an associate professor at Norway’s NTNU Department of Industrial Economics and Technology. Although the benefits of implementing 5S audits in a plant are many, realizing them requires a plant-wide focus on cultural change. As Netland notes in the article, the objective of 5S audits goes beyond the practice into developing “high levels of visual control.”

What follows are two broad areas of ROI and safety that reveal five business and bottom line changing benefits of conducting 5S audits in the plant.

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World-class organizations live and breathe a culture of continuous improvement. When an error occurs, management systems kick in to investigate and prevent the cause. Even when problems do not occur, employees look for ways to reduce waste and improve performance. But how exactly does one create a culture of continuous improvement? A key catalyst is often a management tool called Layered Process Audits (LPAs).

When used properly, layered process audits can foster a culture of quality throughout an organization, thus leading to reduced scrap and rework, fewer customer complaints, and greater productivity. A Harvard Business Review article on sustainable performance makes a clear case for the benefits of total workforce involvement. This creates a culture of shared performance feedback and provides a greater sense of control in how things get done.

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The 8D method, also known as the 8 Disciplines, first appeared in Ford’s 1987 Team-Oriented Problem Solving manual. It’s a tool that’s stood the test of time, becoming the main problem-solving method used in the company, today called Global 8D. 

Even though the 8D approach has been around for more than thirty years, many companies still struggle with ineffective problem-solving and weak implementation of corrective action.

This overview looks at 8D best practices and pitfalls to avoid, helping manufacturers better understand how to use the method to address nonconformances and reduce risk.

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