One of the more interesting issues to
deal with on a production line is Production Vs. Quality. Another way of
putting it is Speed Vs. Precision. In theory, the faster you turn up the
process, the more product you can make in the same amount of time. The
side effect is that quality will suffer. Machinery becomes unstable at
higher speeds. You will start making more and more defects. Think
about it. How many consumer products have you bought off the shelf that
were just defective. You probably did not even feel like taking it back.
It would take more time, effort, and fuel than the product is worth.
One thing is fairly certain though. You will not buy that product again.
So if consumers do not even bother returning a defective product, does the
manufacturer realize what is happening? Not until its too late. In some instances the manufacturer must issue a recall.
So if quality is so important, why do production
managers turn up the speed on their production line? Answer: Because in the
short term it makes them look good. They don't really realize what is
happening. Slowly they will make more and more defects. In the long term,
it devalues their product. Most companies have a production manager and a
quality manager that duke it out at meeting each week.
Probably the best way to improve a
production line is with a process improvement. A process improvement is
anything that improves both the Quality and Productivity of the final product.
I have to say though that the Quality of a product is much more important.
When people lay down their hard earned money, they expect your product to be
right every time on the first try. Most companies have a whole crew of
people that just monitor quality.
As the quality of a product improves
so will demand. Again, there will be more and more pressure to crank up
the speed. The smart thing to do at this point is build another production
line, but most manufacturing plants just do not have the room. They are
uncertain about the market.
A process improvement is like money in the bank.
The definition of process improvement is any gain in
both productivity and quality. A gain in productivity without effecting
quality is also acceptable. So then how do you make a process improvement?
Answer: By studying your production line. Most operators know of or have
suspicion about the machines they operate. So in order to understand what
the operator knows you need a Machine Monitor. That way anyone can go back
and study what happens just before a malfunction.
A malfunction can be any disruption, jam, stop and
restart, operator error, or machine failure. Often, the operator is not
directly watching the problem area when the error occurs. So it is
very difficult to understand or explain what is happening with their machine.
Again, the key to process improvement is
analyzing what happened just before the malfunction occurred.
