"Creative" ways to handle Early Production Containment

T

toucan

#1
Hi. First post here!

Okay, very quick history.....I work for an automotive supplier. I'm in Engineering but did a stint as the Quality Manager here for about 2 years. (it has been less than a year since I've been *thankfully* out of that position).

Our current owner due to slow sales had reduced the number of people allotted to handle containment activities, which was fine for a time. Now we have new product launches occurring for which we have to GP12/early contain (whatever Chrysler calls it) and we are seriously struggling to get it all completed (and frankly are doing a poor job of it...bad product has left the building!).

Being the one who can't keep my trap shut I sent an email to the owner expressing my concern about what is happening. It is ridiculous that the Quality Manager is spending hours containing because we don't have the resoures for it (essentially it is the job of the inspectors to contain any current production as needed in addition to their other duties, one person that is strictly containment only on 1st shift, and then the Quality Engineer does it as needed which seems to be all the time lately). The QM was leaving what is supposedly an 8-5 job at 11PM! I'm basically looking for "creative" ways we could get GP12 completed on parts without adding cost!!! Now keep in mind the owner is a former bean counter. Am I so lacking in imagination or is this an impossible task? This is the email he sent to me and then my response (identifying info removed of course!) ;)

Email thread.....

My original email to Owner: I feel the need to express my concern on the recent issues that are plaguing us at (Customer). We recently cut back on the people doing containment and now we are very quickly seeing the repercussions of this. I'm know there have been other issues in addition to this but just today I have become aware of a whole container of XXXX getting to (plant) without (component) and then XXXX informed me that he personally saw multiple boxes of XXXXXX where some of the parts were not reworked. If this is discovered it won't be pretty I'm sure. I've informed (Quality Manager) about both items and now of course she will be stretched even thinner to firefight these issue.

These are both early production jobs that are to be 100%ed and it sounds like it isn't happening, most likely due to lack of containment resources. I understand the intent of eliminating containment because it isn't fixing the problem and because money is indeed tight, but before eliminating it you need to actually fix something first. And by all means you contain new product 100% or you risk paying someone else to do so which means it may not save money, especially when you consider the damage to a reputation that took years to develop.

I really think we need to rethink our current containment setup because from my vantage point it doesn't appear to be working very well.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Email response from Owner:

This was when our current sales / # of pieces being shipped are less than 50% of what they use to be.

Could you spend a few minutes with (Quality Manager) to see if you can help with the root cause problems?
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Email from me to Owner:

I did speak with (Quality Manager) and basically we both agree that while the containment labor reduction was difficult but doable for a while, things have changed because of all the new product that HAS to be contained. So we both feel that more labor is needed for containment purposes.

I'm not sure if this is what you intended by determining the root cause, but we both believe labor (or lack thereof) to be the issue here.

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Email from Owner to Me:

We need to ship quailty parts to the customer on time at the standards quoted.

i am not disagreening with ensure that only quality parts are delivered BUT lets not compromise any allowable standards.

I would challenge you/engineering to take a fresh approach to this with (Quality Manager) and find a way to solve this problem with out incurring more costs.
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My last email to owner:

This might be a lack of creativity on my part, but the only "problem" as I can see it is that we have new program launches that require additional support. Unless I'm missing something there isn't necessary anything broken to root cause. We haven't even begun to ramp up the (new part) yet and I really worry how that will get GP12ed.

In my opinion we should have a temporary plan in place to address new launch containment (i.e. XXX amount of labor assigned until GP12/early containment is completed). This assumes of course that we don't experience problems that require the parts to continue in containment beyond the customer dictated time.

As for not incurring added costs, I believe if we don't allocate labor to handle this then we WILL incur costs by 3rd party containment providers and then of course there is the hard to measure cost of customer dissatisfaction. My gut reaction, which I acknowledge may be way off base, is that this will cost us more in the long run.

That said, I don't want to be perceived as a "negative Nelly" so I will visit a Quality Online forum I know of and see if anyone has posted about creative GP12 ideas.


If you've made it this far thanks for reading! When I was thrown into the Quality Management position this site really helped me out so thanks for that! :applause:
 
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errhine

Involved - Posts
#2
Have you consulted with the process owners and asked for their input? Your front-line workers *almost* always know where the systemic problems are.
 

Al Rosen

Staff member
Super Moderator
#3
Have you had a look through some of the threads that discus this subject? I'm not familiar with the procedure, but based on a quick look my impression is that it involves tightened sampling inspection until you've proven your processes are stable or in control. Or am I over simplifying it?
 
B

Bill Ryan - 2007

#4
Welcome back to the Cove :bigwave:

I'm thinking along the lines of errhine. There is nothing that states the quality department HAS to take care of GP-12 requirements. Is there any way production can help out?
 
#5
If you've made it this far thanks for reading!
No problem there: Your question is interesting, and hey: Welcome back to the Cove. :bigwave:
When I was thrown into the Quality Management position this site really helped me out so thanks for that!
Glad to hear it :D

Now... I agree with errhine. If you want something creative: Ask the front line troops. It is not at all impossible that they know what is amiss as well as what to do about it.

I, and some of the previous posters are quite unfamiliar with GP12 requirements. Could you provide us with a brief explaination, and info on how you handle it today?

/Claes
 
V

vandenbar

#6
I've got nothing creative but when we had additional inspections to be done I would bring in temporary quality people from an agency. I've used 3rd party as well when in a crunch. It works well because once the job is done then they go away. It's a temporary solution for a temporary lack of resources. Temporary manpower is relatively cheap - much cheaper then a recall or containment at the customer.

Good luck,
 

Jim Wynne

Staff member
Admin
#7
From this vantage point it's very hard to tell exactly what is going on. It could be that you are working for a clueless boss who has mindlessly truncated important resources in pursuit of short-term gains, and has failed to delegate the authority needed (give permission) to get the job done. On the other hand, and I mean no disrespect, it could be that the boss is right and you need to do a better job of reviewing and handling the situation. From my own experience I strongly suspect that the former case is closer to reality than the latter, though.

I wonder about your APQP process if, in the end, significant escapes are happening. You need to start your investigation much further upstream than the GP12 activities, because it seems clear that the processes just aren't ready for production, and if that's the case, no amount of inspection is likely to help. There is no magic that can be done to change the fact that parts are being produced before the system is ready for it to happen. If you want to appeal to your boss, show him failures in the APQP process that result in bad things happening in production. This might start with promises that can't be kept being made to customers in the RFQ stage. If you really are working for Dilbert's pointy-haired boss, don't expect reason to be an ally, though. It's much easier to say "Don't work harder, work smarter," than actually practicing leadership.
 

BradM

Staff member
Admin
#8
From your e-mail exchange, it seems there may be a basic lack of understanding. Your boss perceives that this activity is not labor intensive enough in that it can be absorbed by the existing process. You perceive that you need the labor that was dismissed when your sales had slowed down previously. Both of you agree that quality product must be the end result.

Let's assume for the moment the boss may be correct. Is there process improvements that could enable this verification? Have you done process mapping? Do you perform some level of project/job codes for labor hours?

Saying, objectively make sure that the current process cannot handle the verification. Present this to the boss and ask for suggestions.
 
T

toucan

#9
Wow. Those are some great responses, thanks! First off, for those who are not familiar with GP12/early production containment, it means you have to 100% inspect parts offline for a given amount of time or parts (example: 2 weeks of production). As long as you do not find any problems during this time period, you can then cease this activity going forward.

Our problem is really twofold I guess, there are those jobs for which we continue to have to contain because we continue to have fallout which is a good example of something requiring a fix upstream. In that case the production workers would definitely be a good resource, one that I can say is definitely underused so that is a great common sense suggestion.

The other issue is those jobs which may or may not have quality issues that merely must be 100% inspected because the customer requires it as part of product launch. If you send in a bad part during the early containment period the customer will put you on 3rd party containment. This is where our issue is currently because the way I see it we have to add temporary labor (direct or farmed out) to do what the customer requires. I think that perhaps he is asking how we can do this in another way that isn't necessarily "by the book" and instead works around the customer requirements.

As for process mapping, I am not familiar with this at all so I'll have to poke around the site to read up on it. The owner has insituted some new form of labor tracking on the floor but I'm not familiar with it yet.

As for promises that can't be kept during the RFQ process, that is definitely an issue here for some of the new product. A number of the jobs have required significant amounts of rework because of customer changes that cannot yet be implemented in the tooling. This rework keeps changing and is very manual labor intensive and prone to error. Those weren't my jobs so I'm Monday morning quarterbacking here, but I would have quoted the costs to have someone 100% the parts due to the rework effort required. Then the owner could be shown the breakdown of the costs and see that he would be getting reimbursed for this activity.

Off to get a quick summary of process mapping! :D
 
R

russ.griffith

#10
We have had the same issues. It might not help now but we have had the Program manager set aside money from the Program budget for GP12 on new programs.

Before setting aside the money for this, we would have our quality techs work OT to cover this.

This does not need to be neglected. If Chrysler, GM or whoever starts getting non-conforming product that has passed thru your GP12 process. You might as well get the welcome board ready. ("Welcome Chrysler"). This will put you on the radar really quick.
 
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