Who does most of your inspection - QC or Production

[JRKH]

Besides the Quality Department, who is trying to convince these people that they have a stake in quality? What role does top management play in making people feel like they have a connection to the outcome, thus it's in their interest to monitor the process themselves?

I guess I may be overstating the case a bit. Production does do some checking and do report problems when they see them. Management does promote production inspecting, but it has been difficult getting total buy in from the troops and gaps have opened up.

Right now we are on the hot seat with one of our customers, and the new QM coming on board, is looking at everything with a new, and critical eye. As he and I were discussing what's do-able or not, this came up and I decided to post the question. This will help him benchmark and use the data to get buy in for the changes he would like to make.

James

 

[Juliana - 2008]

you are missing a choice. Production does it. We have no "QC" dept. We don't even have a QA dept.

Was going to say the same thing. Quality Control/Quality Assurance aren't even a part of the vocabulary. We do a lot of checking and inspecting but that is 100% a "everybody in production" responsibility.

 

[56flh]

Our production people, be it machinists or assemblers, are responsible for all inspection on the shop floor with frequency of inspection determined by work center. We also have all machine operators perform a cross inspection at another machine center twice a day, once in the morning and again in the afternoon to try to catch any gaging errors that may be happening, and all inspections are documented. We developed a "quality at the source" attitude around 10 years ago when we stopped having Quality inspectors auditing each work center twice a day and performing all first-piece inspections by having production personnel take ownership of their processes.

The QA department performs random roving audits of work centers and concentrates more on incoming/outgoing inspections, calibration, CMM setup, New item inspections, etc.

Every person in our company is very aware of quailty and its effect on our customers' satisfaction.

 

[fireonce]

In our company,Production does IPQC,and Inspection does FQC/OQC.

 

[unclemook]

Yeap.
Thats the way we do most of our inspection. We have the on-line process owners QC their own work and they take ownership by signing their name away at the check box on the workorder traveler. However it still must go through a final product QI. In some cultures you cant do that and everything must go through QI. Very time comsuming.

 

[Gaby]

On my current employer we handle as follows:
QA - Incoming and Outgoing inspections.
PR - In-process inspection.

Previous employer was:
PR - 50% of in-process inspection
QA - Incoming, outgoing and 2-3 times per line of in-process inspection.

 

[DaMann]

Process operators make all in process inspections,
QA Reviews Results

we have 50 employees here at this location, when asked by auditor or
customer how many people in quality department, can you guess my answer ??

50 of Course.

 

[artorius22]

Our company manufacturers paint for the automotive industry. As a result, all production materials are batches. As we have a union shop, each batch is measured, adjusted, and approved by the Quality Control department.

A previous employer (a manufacturer of formed wire products) was set up that the operators performed in process inspection and entered the information into live SPC software. Quality auditors would take samples hourly for verification.

 

[Stijloor]

Friends,

From what I have seen at my Clients' sites, most of the inspections are performed by production personnel. QC keeps an eye on the inspection process and records.

Stijloor.

 

[Umang Vidyarthi]

Hello covers,

In my company,the inspection as well as the quality control,falls in the domain of 'Production Department'.They are supposed to produce quality product,vis-a-vis the customer's requirement.

The Q/C or Q/A,in my opinion are the 'Vigilance deptt.'created to be eyes and ears of the management,period.

The moment you make them "in-charge" of quality,the onus of responsibility shifts from production to quality,defeating the very purpose of having a Q/C department.

Opinons may and will differ,but the objective should remain in sight.

Umang