What is the Secret of Excellent Quality in a Machine shop?

S

sbtaschr

#1
I have chosen to be a CEO of an auto parts manufacturing company that is not performing well in several different areas and I am paid to bring the company out of the difficult situation it has landed itself in the past so many years.

Next to poor profitability the point which one can not fail to notice is the sky rocketing cost of quality.

1. High in-house rejections.
2. High customer end rejections.
3. High rework & segregation costs.
4. Poor quality SPMs made in-house; producing highly unstable dimensions, requiring frequent re-setting to fix.. leading to poor productivity.
5. Innumerable customer complaints regarding short supply and poor quality.

I have taken this up as a challenge to get the company in a good shape.. but unfortunately with too many complications..makes me wonder where to start..
Lets say makes me wonder what is the secret of excellent quality in a company?? :)
 
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P

Phil Fields

#2
Re: Whats the SECRET OF EXCELLENT QUALITY in a Machine shop?

Here are some suggestions:

Be available
• Be in the office area
• Be in the production area
• Do not be only in your office
Be committed
• Set the company Goals
• Be the leader to stay on course to meet the goals
Be informative
• Communicate to the employees how the company is performing (good or bad)
Be interested
• Listen to the employees
• The employees may have valuable information/suggestions

Phil
 
T

True Position

#3
Re: Whats the SECRET OF EXCELLENT QUALITY in a Machine shop?

I have chosen to be a CEO of an auto parts manufacturing company that is not performing well in several different areas and I am paid to bring the company out of the difficult situation it has landed itself in the past so many years.

Next to poor profitability the point which one can not fail to notice is the sky rocketing cost of quality.

1. High in-house rejections.
2. High customer end rejections.
3. High rework & segregation costs.
4. Poor quality SPMs made in-house; producing highly unstable dimensions, requiring frequent re-setting to fix.. leading to poor productivity.
5. Innumerable customer complaints regarding short supply and poor quality.

I have taken this up as a challenge to get the company in a good shape.. but unfortunately with too many complications..makes me wonder where to start..
Lets say makes me wonder what is the secret of excellent quality in a company?? :)
It sounds like you should be hiring a quality engineer, quality manager, and a few good techs.
 
S

Sturmkind

#4
Re: Whats the SECRET OF EXCELLENT QUALITY in a Machine shop?

I agree with Phil, but more importantly, triage needs to happen right away. Stop the bleeding to your customers using self-imposed level 1 containment. This will temporarily slow shipments but will pay for itself as the quality goes up.

Also, a formal level 1 product re-inspection containment will expose those areas causing your organization the most immediate pain and you can then help prioritize addressing the best ways to eliminate the causes of that pain. This could consist of equipment / tool maintenance/replacement, individual skill set training, better first-off / last-off controls, measurement system/inspection improvements, 'buddy-checks' and sign-offs at set-up before the job is allowed to run production, and so forth.
 

Jen Kirley

Quality and Auditing Expert
Staff member
Admin
#5
Re: Whats the SECRET OF EXCELLENT QUALITY in a Machine shop?

Welcome to the Cove! :bigwave: How encouraging that you have presented your question to us.

I think the secret to an excellent machine shop is organizational culture.

What a maddeningly vague response, yes? But Texas Nameplate Company (TNC) attacked culture as a critical factor in planning for success.

But TNC's methods don't work the same way everywhere. You didn't say where your machine shop is, or if your people want more freedom to make things better or if they are content to say "Just tell me what you want." If it's the latter, your processes need to be set up in such a way that getting it wrong is very difficult, and/or provide your people with crystal-clear, easily followed and readily available instructions plus clearing away all obstacles to their performing well. If your people are skilled and spirited they might want to take on a lot of that themselves - and why wouldn't they? They are the insiders.

To know which direction to take your company, you and/or your trusted managers need to know your people, which includes the machinists but also the support personnel they depend on at some point. You also need to know yourself and how far you are willing to trust and empower your people. If they are feeling dejected it may take some time to win them over - if a dog is kicked often enough how can we expect him to come when he's called? For this need, if you have it (I have no idea) I would invest in Crucial Confrontations training for all personnel in positions of authority - and hold them directly responsible for how well they remove constraints to their people's good performance (I am not affiliated with Goldratt) versus simple numeric outcomes like cost or output. Do this and your people at all levels will eventually understand you genuinely want improvement, not just better numbers. :whip: And that's culture too, I think the most important part.

I hope this helps!
 

Ninja

Looking for Reality
Staff member
Super Moderator
#6
Re: Whats the SECRET OF EXCELLENT QUALITY in a Machine shop?

... 2. High customer end rejections.
:)
And don't be afraid to involve your customer in your initiative, or at the very least let them know your purpose, plan and updates on progress. From this bullet point, the customer already knows about the problems...make sure they know you're addressing them.
Unless they are entirely dependant on you for some reason, the may be looking for a replacement. It would be a shame to do a great job and lose the customer anyway.

Customer's can have a lot of good input.
They can, however, also use the opportunity to make additional or unreasonable demands on you too, so tread carefully.
Involving them (if only as a spectator) will increase their confidence in your company as a supplier, even before you're done your work.

The supplier-customer relationship involves you both. Look for a way to actively work & play well together (for mutual benefit & profit), not just wait until your effort pays off.
 
S

sbtaschr

#7
Re: Whats the SECRET OF EXCELLENT QUALITY in a Machine shop?

Hi!! thank you all for the replies..

remember..I'm new here at this place. I somehow find from my observation about this company that the machinery are just not in a good shape - they are of poor design. Like I mentioned in my earlier e-mail, the machines have too many problems. For example the maintenance department has twice the amount of work than production. The machinery lack poke yokes - hence unskilled operators load the components wrongly in the machines and cause rejections too. There are no line gauges.

Like somebody pointed out; I see a clear incompetence in the quality manager of the company. I have already decided to find a better candidate. However, in my opinion unless the company is willing to spend a lot of money and making new and better quality SPMs; and get rid of the unreliable ones.. even the world's best quality manager can't help. I have laid down my views to the management to not hesitate to invest on better m/cs.


Does anyone here side with my views?? Thanks.:)
 

bobdoering

Stop X-bar/R Madness!!
Trusted Information Resource
#8
Re: Whats the SECRET OF EXCELLENT QUALITY in a Machine shop?

Running to 75% of the print tolerance, and never having teh full print tolerance on the shop floor prints.

Add to that using X hi/lo-R charts instead of X bar-R charts, and the world opens up to you.
 
T

True Position

#9
Re: Whats the SECRET OF EXCELLENT QUALITY in a Machine shop?

Hi!! thank you all for the replies..

remember..I'm new here at this place. I somehow find from my observation about this company that the machinery are just not in a good shape - they are of poor design. Like I mentioned in my earlier e-mail, the machines have too many problems. For example the maintenance department has twice the amount of work than production. The machinery lack poke yokes - hence unskilled operators load the components wrongly in the machines and cause rejections too. There are no line gauges.

Like somebody pointed out; I see a clear incompetence in the quality manager of the company. I have already decided to find a better candidate. However, in my opinion unless the company is willing to spend a lot of money and making new and better quality SPMs; and get rid of the unreliable ones.. even the world's best quality manager can't help. I have laid down my views to the management to not hesitate to invest on better m/cs.


Does anyone here side with my views?? Thanks.:)
The world's best quality manager would have calculated the cost of non-conformance vs the cost of new machinery and sold it to upper management.

If your problems are not reliable/accurate machinery, the root cause was your upper management taking work they were not capable of doing.
 

Marc

Hunkered Down for the Duration with a Mask on...
Staff member
Admin
#10
Number of Machine Shop Employees

I have chosen to be a CEO of an auto parts manufacturing company that is not performing well in several different areas and I am paid to bring the company out of the difficult situation it has landed itself in the past so many years. <snip>
How big, as in how many employees, does your machine shop have?
 
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