Dears,
I am going to implement operator self inspection in order to reduce so far as possible the Quality Control dept. members.
Doing that, I will leave just one Quality Supervisor for each Production Unit, who will work from 8 A.M. to 4 P.M. Unfortunately, I will not have any more Quality representatives over all the three daily production shifts.
The responsibilities for managing Quality during the 3 shifts will be moved to others. But I do not know how to manage the products which require SPC analysis of some key characteristic, as the measurements can not be done anymore over the shifts (no one is able to measure except the Quality guys).
Is it sufficient to measure key characteristics and elaborate SPC only during the new working time of the Quality Supervisors?
If not, are there alternative acceptable solutions?

Thanks for your suggestions.

Dears,
I am going to implement operator self inspection in order to reduce so far as possible the Quality Control dept. members.
Doing that, I will leave just one Quality Supervisor for each Production Unit, who will work from 8 A.M. to 4 P.M. Unfortunately, I will not have any more Quality representatives over all the three daily production shifts.
The responsibilities for managing Quality during the 3 shifts will be moved to others. But I do not know how to manage the products which require SPC analysis of some key characteristic, as the measurements can not be done anymore over the shifts (no one is able to measure except the Quality guys).
Is it sufficient to measure key characteristics and elaborate SPC only during the new working time of the Quality Supervisors?
If not, are there alternative acceptable solutions?

Thanks for your suggestions.

A few thoughts:

You say that the other shifts will self-inspect. If they are self-inspecting, cannot they make whatever measurement you are plotting on the SPC chart? Maybe they don't know how to add it to the chart, but could a log of the results be kept each night, and plotted during the day shift? Probably better to teach the evening folks how to update the SPC chart, but at least you would catch any signals the next day.

If the evening shifts cannot make the measurement, could the day shift QA person sample the completed products from the night before and be plotted during the day?

Could the QA guy(s) be put on rotating shift work? At least then you could get samples of each shift's work over a long period of time.

I suppose the least desirable answer is to only plot the day shift production. It could still catch signals that are based upon the equipment. But, unfortunately I know from personal experience that some places operate much differently on the backshifts than when the "daytime thinkers" are around. So, if some work practice is done differently in the evening, and you only monitor the day shift production, you may have a problem.

Thanks to Steve.
Does anyone have further suggestions? Has someone already experienced this issue in his organization? How was it solved?

Thank you all.

Dears,
I am going to implement operator self inspection in order to reduce so far as possible the Quality Control dept. members.
Doing that, I will leave just one Quality Supervisor for each Production Unit, who will work from 8 A.M. to 4 P.M. Unfortunately, I will not have any more Quality representatives over all the three daily production shifts.
The responsibilities for managing Quality during the 3 shifts will be moved to others. But I do not know how to manage the products which require SPC analysis of some key characteristic, as the measurements can not be done anymore over the shifts (no one is able to measure except the Quality guys).
Is it sufficient to measure key characteristics and elaborate SPC only during the new working time of the Quality Supervisors?
If not, are there alternative acceptable solutions?

Thanks for your suggestions.

I would be very worried with cirtain aspects of your proposals as to the use of SPC.

For starters let me say we use operators to measure and operate the SPC and quality oversight to periodically check that the recording and actions are being performed correctly.

Why? Because the whole point of SPC is that Statistical PROCESS CONTROL is to control manufacture and not just be a retrospective tool. The Magic is in its use as the PROCESS CONTROL element. It therefore follows if a process is set up for SPC then the operators controlling the process need the data live to make decisions.

So it follows if you are using SPC as a PROCESS CONTROL you will have to train operators accordingly.

This is something I feel very strong about if you have not guessed:o

"Why? Because the whole point of SPC is that Statistical PROCESS CONTROL is to control manufacture and not just be a retrospective tool. The Magic is in its use as the PROCESS CONTROL element. It therefore follows if a process is set up for SPC then the operators controlling the process need the data live to make decisions.

So it follows if you are using SPC as a PROCESS CONTROL you will have to train operators accordingly."

AMEN! And, by the way, for a process to be controlled, the operators should be the "experts" of the process. There are times when the operators are not trained to measure with more sensitive or complicated equipment. But it is best to avoid that type of gaging, if at all possible, so that the operators can gage themselves.

Train them, track the charts to ensure the training was effective, and run with it. Give them the information to make live, real-time decisions on process adjustment. After all, if you were driving all night, would the information from the gas gage yesterday help you make a decision the next morning? :cool: I don't think so...

Bob Doering
info*at*correctspc*dot*com