Go from “doing quality” to mastering it—and get more value for your quality management investment.
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Quality practices have to be carried out for compliance reasons and to meet customer agreements. But traditionally, they’ve returned little value to the organization beyond “checking the box.”
Sure, site-level analyses translate to incremental improvements, but they don’t transform organizational performance. Quality control has been essential in manufacturing—but it hasn’t necessarily been influential.
That doesn’t have to be the case. Quality control measures can be goldmines for product improvement—and for reaching high-level strategic goals, such as lowering costs and mitigating risk. The insight you need to make more accurate and impactful decisions is being collected—probably right now—through your quality control processes.
These activities accumulate massive amounts of data—and some of your most important operational metrics. Quality control data encompasses nearly every aspect of your business, from suppliers and raw materials to equipment, people, processes, and final product inspections. All that data can be used to inform higher-level decision making—to elevate the impact of quality control in manufacturing.
To extract more value from quality control data, manufacturers need easy access to Statistical Process Control (SPC) data. Quality control tools need to be standardized, comprehensive, and actionable—for users at every level of the business.
You collect quality control data anyway, right? Why not use your information more effectively? Learn how to get more value out of the quality control practices you already have in place.
Make it better. Make it faster. Make it cheaper.
Manufacturers are under constant pressure to reduce waste and eliminate inefficiencies across processes—and to deliver the highest quality product at the lowest possible price. Along the way, you also need to balance customer expectations, regulatory requirements, and business goals.
Quality control practices are an essential way to track everyone’s requirements, as well as to assign standards and acceptable manufacturing ranges. Once established, quality control teams measure performance against these standards. And measure. And measure. And measure.
Then what? Based on SPC triggers, quality managers address core quality issues such as variability, volatility, and unpredictability. But their purview is limited, sometimes to a single product, line, or shift. And their goal is to fix an issue—as quickly as possible—and move on. Like a fire department for quality concerns. When managers return to the data, it’s usually to verify that corrective actions worked, and that production returned to the statistically acceptable status quo.
Quality control is essential to manufacturing. Without the right corrective actions, production lines could stand still. And without exceptional quality, manufacturers risk everything—reputation, sales prospects, and profitability.
And yet, quality control practices can do more. Using data they already collect, manufacturers can advance their organizations—not just defend and protect them. With enterprise software and quality control tools, data can reveal magnitudes of opportunity. Integrated SPC software makes quality control important—not just in manufacturing, but to the organization overall.
Consider how these benefits of quality control in manufacturing build value across the entire business.
When quality control data is monitored continuously—in real time—issues get detected and resolved more quickly. At the plant level, digital tools speed up data collection and improve the overall accuracy of the information gathered. With digital data collection, handwritten errors, incomplete information, and inconsistent entries aren’t added to the data set. Digital tools also automate analytics and alerts, ensuring that the right people are notified to act—as issues occur.
At higher levels in the organization, leaders can compare SPC data across shifts, processes, lines, and plants. Reports and dashboards are created automatically, so it’s easier to discover actions that optimize quality. Analysis is more effective and efficient, and best practices can be applied across the organization.
Manufacturers want their production lines to run as smoothly as possible and as close to capacity as possible. They use quality control practices to prevent inconsistencies or other failures (such as equipment or raw material defects) that delay operations.
Since most quality managers focus only on their line or shift, productivity gains are limited. But with an enterprise view of quality control data, organizations can compare performance across products, lines, sites, and other variables and arrive at best practices. Then, they can be replicated for greater organizational gains.
Quality control practices help manufacturers meet customer expectations and compliance standards. Quality measures that ensure product consistency, such as net weight and yield, are tracked multiple times a shift. But if those figures sit on a clipboard or get filed away after each shift, they don’t contribute to continuous improvement.
Improving quality and consistency is important for the plant floor—and even better for the enterprise. When quality data is collected digitally and stored in a centralized location, leaders are able to extract more insight and value from the numbers. It’s faster and easier for executives to spot emerging trends and make strategic decisions about quality processes, goals, and investments. With an enterprise view of quality control data, manufacturers can maintain product consistency across lines, shifts, and locations.
To improve profitability, manufactures need to reduce scrap, waste, rework, and recalls. But to fix problems, operators have to be able to see problems. Quality managers use SPC to spot out-of-spec issues that lead to costly mistakes. With elevated, SPC-based quality control practices, you can stop problems before it’s too late to salvage time and materials.
At the line and plant level, quality control improves efficiencies, and can save hundreds or thousands of dollars each shift. Extend those capabilities across the organization, and manufacturers could save millions of dollars. Consolidated, comprehensive, accessible data gives manufacturing leaders more power over the bottom lines.
Most manufacturing companies build their brands around quality. But how do they measure it? How do they prove it?
Customer satisfaction, certifications, and successful audits help tell your quality story—when (or because) it’s supported by data.
When SPC data is collected, stored, and reported digitally, it’s easier for manufacturers to validate product quality. In mere minutes, you can verify that checks were completed correctly and on time, and you can respond to customer inquiries—in detail—about specific days, shifts, lines, or lot numbers. Precise tracking helps managers pinpoint root cause, and take immediate action to protect the brand.
These benefits also roll up to the corporate level. Using enterprise-wide information about quality control and performance, leaders can make informed strategic decisions and investments that continuously improve quality—and brand positioning.
With today’s advancements in digital technology, the best place to store this database—and your quality platform—is in the cloud. Doing so significantly reduces deployment and maintenance costs while increasing agility and supporting scalability.
Integration is a key tenet of the Enact quality platform. This integration takes multiple forms:
There’s a huge difference between “doing quality” and “mastering quality” in manufacturing.
Companies that do quality control focus heavily on data collection and action. They spend the bulk of their time checking boxes: Was data collected? When? By whom? They only look for insights if corrective action is required. And in those instances, analysis usually ends once the urgent issue is resolved.
Mastering quality control uses the same data—but applies it differently. Masters spend more time and energy proactively analyzing data, and compare metrics from across the organization to uncover best practices and opportunities. They take action after they analyze.
An analytical approach to quality management empowers manufacturers to be proactive and strategic with their quality control efforts. They uncover opportunities that support big picture strategic goals. They use quality control as a strategic lever to achieve corporate goals.
At the practical, day-to-day level, here’s what it looks like to shift from tactical quality control to strategic quality management.
Organizations that do quality control:
Organizations that master quality control:
When SPC tools are fast, accessible, and easy to use, manufacturers can analyze issues before they take action. With enterprise-wide SPC, you can finally have the tools you need to proactively address quality.
Enact empowers you to quickly realize the benefits of digital data collection and analysis. Start today with:
Your quality management program must support tactical, everyday quality requirements—and bigger-picture strategic goals. How can quality control programs balance both these needs and add value to the organization?
An enterprise-wide, digital SPC solution meets a diverse set of user requirements. The right solution helps you measure quality in real time, prevent costly problems, and reduce risk across the enterprise.
Here’s how a digital enterprise SPC solution can help you balance tactical and strategic quality control needs.
When choosing a quality platform, work with your provider to pin down exactly what you want from the platform:
The best way to launch a successful Enact deployment is via a targeted, small-scale deployment. By starting small—one filling or packaging operation, for example—you can experience Enact and build a foundational understanding of how your quality platform can work.
You begin by setting up an Enact subscription. Then, the in-app Quick Startup enables you to set up a simple data collection right away. You can immediatetly start collecting data and see how Enact works in your manufacturing production environment. When you encounter questions or need help, the Enact Guided Learning Center provides helpful videos and online tutorials.
You get to experience Enact’s dashboards, discuss feedback from your team, and evaluate the results of your initial setup. In other words, you get to see firsthand what Enact can do for you—and how it can help you extract meaningful business insights from your manufacturing quality data.
What to Expect