Small , CNC Machine shop Housekeeping and Involvement of Quality department (Part 1)
Hi all ! 🙏
Today I am going to talk to you about Housekeeping practices in micro to small machine shops and how it is related to Q.A
(Photo credit :- iStock)
For quality assurance , company should also keep shop floor neat and clean. Why ? ... Let's say , there is a messy arrangement of jobs ...finished jobs and reworked jobs kept side by side without any identification.. As a matter of fact, the chances of mixing rework job and finished job get increased by many folds...THIS SITUATION IS ABSOLUTLY NOT DESIRABLE FOR QUALITY ASSURANCE PROCEDURE.
Let's go to second example. In a similar messy situation, our inspector keeps micrometer on the table, where finished jobs are kept. He leaves the place in a hurry. The helper also without any guidelines starts loading jobs on the same table near that micrometre. Second helper comes who don't have any slightest idea ...He just loads jobs on the same table. Our micro meter gets surrounded by finished jobs . Some jobs though not too heavy lands directly on micro meter. Quality inspector comes back after some time. He fires helpers for such messy situation and somehow picks up micro meter from the piles of jobs. He checks micro meter superficially for any damage and go on checking other jobs .....
So friends how to think the situation is ? Is it healthy from Quality Assurance point of view ? ... No , not at all.. So what should management do ?
Management with the help of Quality Assurance department should make some sort of checklist for both operators and inspectors too. This sort of checklist for housekeeping can form basis for KRA / KPI for operators.
Today I am going to show how I started below two sort of checklist for a small scale company. Remember that the company is in process of implementing Quality Management System. Most of the operators do not understand English Language. So I decided to go by local language.
Quality Assurance Person /Management staff member should always look into the following points while drafting Checklist for housekeeping in such small / micro companies, who never implemented such practices earlier.
2. It's better to use local language in initial stages.
3. Checklist should give perfect answer ...means either YES or NO. It must not include possibilities or ambiguous response like 'maybe' , not applicable , not available etc.
4. Keep in mind that you are starting new process. Although checklist is very easy to fill up, you should prepare for resistance from operator or by inspector himself. In order to lessen resistance, you must impart training before implementing the new process. And answer all doubts.
5. Do not prepare checklist which is difficult to understand to common man. Do not put any points, that are practically difficult to check. Start with few, simple points. The more simple your checklist, the more are chances, it will get followed regularly.
6. After successful run for at least 3 months , we should go for new points, by keeping old points as it is. Means we have to append the checklist and not to create again from scratch.
How I made the following two checklist for housekeeping ?
When I visited the company, I noticed owner of company wanted to have smooth quality management system in its place. But because of work load, the quality department person was more involved in shop floor activities (daily activities) The company or CNC shop turnover was not that high, so company could not afford a separate person for system. I talked to operators ,quality department person and owner . I saw there , no system implemented earlier towards quality management . Many small things were not followed. So I made a simple checklist.
Please go through them.If you have any query , please write us. We can help you in that case. Thanks.
........Continued in next part....
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