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The Journal features ForceWorx
- Imagine what it would be like if an operator knew when a production process was unstable and fixed it immediately.
- Imagine if a machine automatically shut off or alerted someone when a setup error occurred.
- Imagine if an error could be predicted before it even happened.
With today’s zero defect tolerance, manufacturers must pay close attention to quality, and they must ensure that they don’t ship even one bad product to their customers. Doing the latter can result in expensive consequences such as being put on containment by the customer, a complete product recall or lost future contracts. At the very least, it results in increased costs and a diminished reputation. For these reasons, it’s imperative to keep defective and substandard products from going out the door.
Post-Production Inspection is No Longer Good Enough.
Until recently, companies were relying solely on post- production inspection methods and devices to detect bad products before they’re shipped. This conventional practice was based on the underlying assumption that a bad part can be produced at any time, and that catching these parts before they went out to customers was a priority.
With the demand for quality hitting an all-time high, progressive companies are shifting their focus to a conviction that it’s impossible for a good process to produce a bad part, unless something in the process changes.
This revolutionary attitude toward quality assurance is simple: monitor the process. This paradigm shift derives from a basic scientific principle: If all variables in a process are stable and constant, the process’s outcome also will remain stable and constant.