Page 17 - MetalForming March 2011

means employees are spending time where it counts; and, fewer customer complaints give companies more time to spend on proactive initiatives that improve processes, rather than fixing defective processes and firefighting.
According to Mark Netzel, quality assurance manager at Talan Products, Inc., Cleveland, OH, a quality product is the first order of business. It even outweighs making a ship- schedule due date. Bill Adler, CEO of
says Netzel. “We have numerous management meetings where we review performance metrics such as efficiency, scrap, availability incidents, customer complaints and per- formance to budget, as well as a number of business- process metrics (QMS metrics). One example would be our APQP process where we look at first run being 100-per- cent on time to customer due date, zero quality issues dur-
another Cleveland stamper, Strip- matic Products, agrees.
“We’re about 5.5 Sigma right now,” says Adler, “and we’ve greatly reduced our need to inspect parts before they go out the door. This has significantly reduced our indi- rect labor from where it was 5 yr. ago.”
Improve by Benchmarking
Benchmarking helps companies identify areas for improvement and validate areas that are successful. Talan Products, for example, tracks metrics internally and posts them monthly for all employees to see.
“We use the PMA benchmarks on applicable metrics,”
ing the first run, and first-run cost performance against quoted num- bers.” These are the types of activities that cumulatively contribute to met- alformers being more proactive and less reactive.
Not only does reducing the cost of quality positively affect profits, it also impacts employee morale. For example, Adler’s employees
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MetalForming/March 2011 15
Not only does reducing the cost of quality positively affect profits, it also impacts employee morale.
Best Practices
respect and acknowledge the importance of making good parts.
“When we do have a quality issue,” he says, “we gather our employees together and explain the impact that the cost of poor quality has on the company. Regular acknowledge- ment of our quality record has kept everyone’s focus where it belongs—on keeping quality high.” MF