Quality 4.0: Trend inside trend (Part 2)

The application of the internet to industrial production allows companies to exploit data more than ever.

The inherent importance of quality

If you look at any surveys conducted by manufacturers, the top priority is always aimed at improving quality. End customers require quality products so that OEMs* require quality performance all the way to be applicable to their entire supply chain. In today’s production environment, there is no tolerance in providing anything except a quality product. The risk to the company’s reputation is too great.

*OEM: Original parts manufacturer is a company that produces parts and equipment that may be sold by another manufacturer.

However, there is often a disconnect in the importance of quality with executives at manufacturing companies. Traditionally, the quality segment was considered to be part of the quality department, not the entire organization. In this model, because of the quality problems that are encapsulated only in the production stage. Therefore, the budget to fund quality management systems goes in the direction of more or better machines. This same part (overall quality array) is often overlooked. The cost of quality control is only for the control function, responsible for pointing out the bad points of the product before it is delivered to the customer. Companies want to avoid the cost of quality being too high to produce every part of a quality product, but the quality department doesn’t get the funding it needs to avoid creating unwanted errors. on each of these products. The costs only focus on finding faults on parts that have been manufactured. Investing in processes and tools to ensure quality from production inputs has become much more difficult because of this way of thinking.

Luckily, this is changing. The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), a result of Industry 4.0, enables companies to extract more data than ever before, helping administrators see the value of quality as a business strategy. Imagine that the sales and marketing department has learned that quality performance is a competitive differentiator. Therefore, these moderators call and support it. This puts pressure on R&D and engineering to design products that work better and are more durable than their competitors, in addition to having to innovate.

Of course, activities related to quality assurance now require coordination and time for all departments in the company to participate and confirm the quality of each of their tasks before the production process. The official export begins. The quality manager, the person in charge of product manufacturing, and the company’s research and development department need to confirm all quality information is guaranteed.

(To be continued)

Productivity and Quality Office