Any company in the manufacturing business needs to provide periodic quality audits to make sure the business is running as smoothly as possible. No matter what the company produces, there is always competition, so being able to stay financially strong against the competition remains one of the most important tasks of any business. There are different strategies in place for performing manufacturing quality audits, so following these five facts about the audits and how it can help a company should provide helpful.
Poor Supplier Quality
The fact of the matter is not all parts suppliers are created equal. In fact, some suppliers offer inferior products in order to increase the profit margins, but it also reduces the quality of the finished, manufactured product. Now, there are different ways a manufacturer needs to perform a quality audit to determine the supply quality. To do this, they need to look at how often the line is shut down due to poor quality, figure out the processing cost due to an inspection failure and how much scrapping, reworking and processing costs are in regards to poor quality.
Cost Recovery
Determining the recovered cost of a manufacturing process is helpful. This way, a company can determine how much money it is bringing back in off of the products it’s purchasing. In general, a company has two major expenses: material cost and non-material cost. Recovering the cost of materials is vital for a business to survive.
Supplier Audit
Far too many manufacturing companies do not perform an audit of their supplier, but as not all suppliers are the same, the fact is not all suppliers are going to have the same price points as well. Performing this audit ensures a supplier is following the agreed upon process and procedures that the companies initially agreed upon.
Keeping Score
There’s a myth out there in manufacturing and in business in general that a company should never keep score. However, a scorecard is extremely helpful when looking over plastic fabrication and other manufactured services. This helps track MRB inventory levels, warranty reserves, number of corrective actions required in a quarter, percentage of COPQ recovered from suppliers and several other areas of importance.
Closed Loop
Maintaining a closed loop in the manufacturing process, such as in plastic fabrication, can prove helpful in offering a quality product. A closed loop corrective action also helps pinpoint problems in the manufacturing process.