Defect Tracking

Do you know what the reasons for defects within your manufacturing process are? Are you able to make real time decisions to correct those defects?

Every manufacturing process produces products with some type of defect causing it to be a financial liability to the company. Decisions need to be made instantaneously when a problem in the manufacturing process shows up. For every one (1) defective product that is scrapped, it may take 20 good products to be manufactured and sold to make up for the financial loss on that one piece. In a mass production type facility, defects must be recognized and fixed immediately!

The SMS Group has helped several companies with the tracking of defects on their manufacturing lines thus enabling them to make production decisions in a real time manner.

Customer Profile:

• large mass production manufacturer
• manufactured many components which were assembled in the final product
• many products had multiple processes done to it before the final assembly operation
• defect tracking was done manually at each process area
• because it was a high speed production facility, hundreds if not thousands of parts could be defective before the line might be shut down
• manual data was collected after each shift so it was very tough for supervisors to make calls or investigate reasons why a process was out of control

In the analysis phase of the project, it was discovered that there were defined types of defects that could occur at each individual process area. These were all captured by using a bar coded master sheet. The operator could scan when a defect of that type occurred. That information was instantaneously sent to the preceding process and into the master database. The supervisor of the preceding process could immediately know when his/her department needed improvements. The master database was used to tally all types of defects and when a pre-set % of a particular type of defect occurred, the software would notify the appropriate designated people. (Example – defect code (0003) = missing hole in blank – if the preset % was surpassed within a certain number of parts, the system would make contact with the purchasing manager as the blanks were a purchased item. The purchasing manager would then know that there might be a problem.

Every manufacturing scenario is unique, every manufacturing company uses information differently, The SMS Group does not force you into a canned package. We customize software to fit your needs.