Your quality control staff is making mistakes again? Don’t panic just yet. It’s perfectly normal for them to make mistakes. But, before they get you on the nerve regularly, maybe you should anticipate it by identifying the troubles. Yes, you can prevent it from happening.
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It’s true, however, that the quality control process should not result in inaccurate data because it affects customers’ satisfaction and safety. In reality, even the most trained inspectors might make mistakes.
This article will discuss several common mistakes that companies often make. It might happen during the checking process itself or the error lies in unreliable procedures.
Only trains some employees involved
The management often assumes that people in managerial and supervisory positions comprehensively understand their duties and therefore dependable. That is the reason why most companies prioritize training for front-line workers and underestimate training for the managers.
This is not right. The managers equally require proper training in order to execute the right quality control process. Their decisions will have an immense impact.
When regular employees make mistakes, it might cause business loss, but when the executives do that it might affect the business reputation.
Related article: How to Improve Your Manufacturing Worker Productivity
Misunderstand the products specifications and quality standards
Clients usually will hand the manufacturers a list of specifications of the products and the quality control departments will refer to it during the inspection. The list might contain the size, dimension, color, ingredients, and other specs of a product. The list might also contain the limit of tolerance in defects.
The inspectors might have spent a long time checking the manufactured goods one by one. They might get tired and miss small details or the requirement in the checklist. Consequently, the products do not meet the standards your clients set. Here is how you can solve it:
- Ensure that all members of the team understand the standards of quality and products’ specifications through a briefing.
- Do inspection team rotation to make sure the teams involved are fit and meticulous enough for the activity.
Use improper tools
There are tools that the inspection team uses to do quality control. Here are some mistakes that often happen:
- Forget to bring the tools for the checking process
- Bring the wrong tools
- Bring the correct tools that are nor properly calibrated.
Those issues result in inaccurate reporting. For example, you produce sinks that should fit in a particular fixture. During the inspection, if the team does not bring the correct tools to do the measurement, the result is not reliable and the products’ defect is not detectable.
To solve this, the inspection team should get an explanation about the specification of the products and the tools that they’re going to use for the quality control as detailed as possible.
Management Representative (MR) involves in the reporting
Sometimes the MR team tries to convince the inspectors that certain defects are okay, that the products can be proceded to the customers. This type of advice can be problematic if the management does not set the limitation for defect tolerance.
Therefore, it’s really important for the inspection team to report all the defects that can not be tolerated as per the standard. The MR should receive the reports of the condition of the products and the specification checklists. So, the success of the production is not based on mere assumptions.
Do the process manually
Quality control becomes very inefficient if the teams do it manually. Be it with paper and pen or Excel document. This method will waste your time for sorting the products in piled documents. It prevents you from ensuring quality effectively.
Using technology such as Manufacturing System helps you work faster and more accurate. After the production completed, you can immediately record the condition of the products based on the standards immediately. The cloud-based system allows everyone in charge to access the data from anywhere at any time.
Related articles: 5 Critical Software Systems for Manufacturing Companies
Conclusion
It’s very common for inspectors to make mistakes once or twice. That is why the management should have a complete and thorough quality control procedures to prevent recurring troubles. If the documents, employees, and technical aspects are following the procedures, the quality control will be more effective and accurate.
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