Saturday, March 23, 2013

Using Quality Assurance Software Increases Productivity And Efficiency

By Ann Jordan


The global economy is based on capitalism, though there is a wide array of variations on that theme. For the system to continue working, people have to make things that work so that consumers will buy them. A key management tool in the process of making things that work is the developed means to measure the process to be sure the product or service meets specifications, and Quality Assurance Software is designed for that purpose.

Following the oil crisis of 1972, a flood of new products from surprising sources hit the market, and they were of good value and readily accepted by the global market, to the chagrin of producers who had held the greatest market share in the past. The resulting disturbance in management philosophy introduced many new concepts to manufacturing. Total quality management and its focus on the customer came first, followed by a more rigorous application of statistics in Six Sigma methodologies.

The shift from focusing on the background details of how a business is run to the laser like focus on what consumers want has been dramatic. It brought on the need to look carefully at every segment of the production cycle to ensure efficiency and value are added throughout. Looking at each phase separately makes the exercise clearer and easier to handle.

Often the initial look at how a system is running, as opposed to how management and trainers thought it was running, can identify efficiencies and improvements without further analysis. These simple fixes are part of the advantage the continuous improvement approach identifies. From there, each part of the cycle is looked at to find better, faster or less expensive ways to accomplish the same thing.

When the product or service is more sophisticated, there may be many sequential processes occurring at the same time making the analysis and the process more difficult to evaluate and improve. With many different steps in a manufacturing cycle, the possibility that something may go wrong increases. Inadequate material or an improper action can make incremental errors occur along the way, creating an inferior or defective product.

What the newest trend in management brings into focus is the need to continuously monitor what is being done throughout the cycle of production, not just what the final output becomes. Doing this requires careful consideration of what consists of important information about each segment of the creative process. The ability to assess the health of the process definitively requires careful data collection and keen analysis.

For mass production, manufacturing is ultimately repetitive, resulting in a large amount of data collected for review. The failure of a ball bearing in a cutting machine or an igniter not operating optimally might indicate the need for minor tweaks or cessation of work for repairs. Indicators that foretell of a piece of equipment means it can be replaced or repaired in advance.

Finding the meaning behind the data can be a grueling effort if handled manually, and even the most intuitive can miss information from a mountain of numbers. The application of quality assurance software can take control of the effort and quickly present any variation to management. With the points of change identified, measures can be taken before any catastrophe to keep the process smooth and effective.




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