Quality control in manufacturing involves reviewing goods to ensure they meet standards. Methods include failure testing, statistical sampling, and corporate quality. The Plan, Do, Check, Act process is a common framework. Failure testing involves testing until a product fails. Statistical sampling involves comparing a sample to a perfectly built product. Corporate quality focuses on training workers. Using multiple methods can improve the manufacturing process.
Quality control (QC) in manufacturing is the process of reviewing manufactured goods to ensure they meet a standard guideline. Different methods can be failure testing, statistical sampling or company quality. These methods require manufacturers to place people on the production floor and constantly test products to ensure that the quality meets company standards. When performing quality control in manufacturing, the process is dictated by the type of product being produced and how best to measure those goods to ensure that the sample tested represents the overall population of goods.
A common framework for quality control in manufacturing is to follow the Plan, Do, Check, Act (PDCA) process. Like any business process, quality control requires a plan, usually created by owners and managers. The second step is to put this plan into action by actually carrying out the activities planned to test the quality of the product. System auditing is necessary to ensure that the quality control process is working as intended and helps the business to improve its manufacturing process. Finally, the act stage requires owners and managers to engage in actions that consistently improve the company’s quality and quality control.
Failure testing for quality control in manufacturing is the process of taking a company-produced good and testing it until the product fails. This process can also test the expected working conditions under which a customer can use the product. For example, a company that makes table saws may list the product as good for recreational use by homeowners. However, the table saw is not intended for commercial use, such as four to six hours of constant work. The company knows this because quality control engineers tested the saw until it failed or began to function erratically.
Mass production companies often use statistical sampling for quality control in production. This involves selecting a random sample of products produced by the manufacturing department. Quality control engineers will then compare this sample to a perfectly built product to determine how well the new batch compares to the company standard. If too many products in the sample pool fail, engineers can select a second sample to further test the batch. Too many errors in the second batch can result in the entire batch being scrapped or re-manufactured to correct the problems.
Corporate quality is the process of focusing on people rather than products. For many companies, training and developing workers who produce products is a more proactive position for quality control in manufacturing. This process can be more costly, however, as companies must create a program to train new hires in quality control, rather than some workers in the manufacturing process. Using the enterprise quality method together with another quality control method can create a better goods manufacturing process.
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