Archive for Quality
A Crisis on a Friday
We all know how it is as a Quality Manager-It is Friday afternoon, around 3:30-4 o’clock, your phone just rang and you have bad parts at two of your biggest customers. Never fails that it is always a crisis on Fridays. What do you do? Put two or more of your Quality engineers on planes and send them to your customers. They get to your customer and find that the part is to print and the real issue is not yours! You tell them to get on a plane Saturday and get home.
Continuous Quality Fire Fighting
Chet was a very busy man as the Director of Quality Engineering at a large automotive component manufacturing plant, with a staff of over 50 employees, at three different locations. Chet knew his staff was always so busy “fighting fires” they simply could not get corrective actions in place before the next “fire” hit them.
»» Continuous Quality Fire Fighting
The Quality Manager’s Guide to Being Totally Miserable
Granted, even on the best day, a Quality Manager’s job is no picnic. One manager said he had a good day if he was able to sit for 10 minutes at his desk with no interruptions. A good week would be two good days. It’s a pretty low threshold.
»» The Quality Manager’s Guide to Being Totally Miserable
Don’t Let Your “Customer” Run Your Quality Department
In today’s global marketplace of manufactured products the pressure for cost reduction and quality improvement can be overwhelming. Nowhere is this more evident than in the business of automotive parts production. OEM parts suppliers are being squeezed heavily to produce parts at a reduced cost everywhere in the world. OEMs want the parts cheaper. They are also demanding stricter quality standards across the board, and they are enforcing that requirement with “teeth.” Mandated containments and controlled shipping are sapping away the meager profit margin agreed upon in the price concession negotiations.
»» Don’t Let Your “Customer” Run Your Quality Department
Containment Cost Savings
Dave Jensen thinks the OEM auto makers are trying to strangle their own suppliers. Dave has been a quality manager for a midwestern automotive parts manufacturer for almost 20 years. His world and his business relationship with his customers are both changing. “The OEMs negotiate prices all the way to the bone, then they hold our feet to the fire with outrageous containment costs for the slightest quality issue,” Dave says.