Quality is More
Than Quality Control

By Randy DeFord, Mid-West Spring & Stamping

In the last two decades, there is no doubt that America has made huge strides in integrating quality-control techniques into the workplace. The whole idea of a quality system is to provide a structured way of verifying the compliance of anything coming off our machines.

It’s the job of engineers to sift, filter and sort out all the design data and create shopfloor documentation to provide specifications for the shop employee to manufacture the spring. It’s the job of Quality Control to develop systems of measuring the dimensional and load call-outs to meet the customer’s needs.

However, nothing totally takes the place of a quality mind set – the understanding that doing it wrong is not even an option. There are many things that can go wrong during the manufacturing process, but for those who actually care about their work, those events are greatly reduced. Here are some things you can do to be sure your work is top-notch:

1. Measure your material dimensions. I learned this the hard way. As a coiler, I depended on the wire handler to bring me the right material. It’s pretty easy to blame the wire guy when you coil a batch of springs from the wrong size material. I had this happen in an era when I was less enlightened. When it finally got through my thick head that my error caused no pain to the wire handler, yet I had to completely do the work all over again, the light started to go on. Nobody helped me; I flipped that switch myself. I started checking the material tags and measuring the material (which takes a whole 30 seconds) to verify I had the right stuff before I started my setup. This simple step eliminated countless hours of possible useless setup (all time equates to cost) and potentially bad parts (scrap cost). It also saved me the aggravation of having to do the work over.

I started questioning my thinking. Why did I not care? Why would I want to be lazy and risk the chance of doing it all over again? Most importantly, what perception does the customer get of my work? Isn’t it better to continually produce a good product, and help secure that job and that location for years and decades to come?

2. Keep your work area clean. Sounds crazy? Not really! Organized people get better results. If you have a work area that has a place for everything, it defines efficiency. If you know where your tools are, know where your gears and slides are stored, and have everything stored properly, the time saved over weeks and months will be worth it. That means you can actually get another 20 or 30 jobs a year out that door.

Also, keep your machines clean and lubricated. Everything wears, but lubricated bearings and shafts will far outlast that neglected grease gun.

3. Ask your support people for support. The very function of Engineering is to interpret and negotiate the customer’s needs into a repetitively manufacturable product. This means having clear specifications and standards, as well as determining if changes can be made when that wire size isn’t quite what it should be or if a material substitution is needed. Engineers need to lend you a hand, and you need to knock on their door.

This also holds true for management’s onus of providing capable equipment and maintenance. Machines that have loose bearings and fittings, or worn gears and guides cannot make good springs. Make those issues known to your foreman or supervisor so plans can be made to repair machines that can’t produce parts to the specifications that are handed you.

A shop floor is very much like an outside service vendor. The front office takes the order, Engineering produces the paperwork, and then the order is handed off to another facility to make the product – in this case, the shop floor. You need to be sure you have two critical, drop-dead things in place: the proper, readable instructions to produce the job (that includes blueprints) and the machinery capable of doing the job right, time, after time, after time.

4. Play well with others. “Teamwork” is an easy word to throw around, but it’s really a hard concept to master. If it were easy, everybody would have it down. It requires everyone to clearly understand their function and how that function helps someone else do a better job. The best quality attribute is a state of mind that says, “I will do the best I can with what I have.” All humans have differences, prejudices and belief systems. Those differences should make us more interesting, not push us apart as cooperative agents for change. Culture is always a factor in the workplace, but if you’re going to keep your eye on a ball, make sure it’s the customer’s. Care about what you’re doing. Make it a personal commitment to be good at what you do in spite of your circumstances. Change starts with a minimum of one person deciding it’s time to do something better, for all the right reasons, and quality is the result. Be that person!

Many people complain about being strapped with quality standards. If you set your own personal standards, quality control isn’t a threat because you understand it’s there to do things right the first time, not hold you accountable for poor workmanship … because there is no accountability for that, if you care.