Quality First…. Just in case you’re wondering what we mean by this ….your project can not be successful if it is a financial disaster and a technical success …and it will be highly unlikely that it will be a financial success if you are a technical disaster. So as you can see we must understand that both these variables are interdependent with each other for a successful development program…
Most of us will never have any luck getting funded unless we first understand the costs of business.. So let’s start with the Outlaw Solution “laws of fast and small” so we can begin on the right foot.
Why is it called “fast and small” you may ask? Exactly what do you mean by fast and small? Well let’s go through the thought process here as we explain the concept. If we look at any endeavor one of the residuals of cost of any product is how fast you make it and then we must look at how small the financial capital is used to make it.
In the context of injection molding what that means is this. If we rent a molding machine for $40 dollars and hour and we have a single cavity and it makes 1 part every 60 second we can sell 60 parts for $40 dollars (the press rate for one hour) plus the cost of the material to break even.
Now let’s suppose you go to a technical expert from OS&C and he can show you how to make a mold that will make one part in 5 seconds. Now you can sell 720 parts for $40 dollars plus the cost of the material. That means you have reduced your cost of overhead by 12 times.
“Wow!” you say, but not so fast…. let’s look at another side of the coin. what if all the parts were made incorrectly and were rejected and the material cost was 1 dollar per part and we had to throw them away…oops we just learned our first lesson on how important it is to meet our quality criteria…
At the resource page we discussed how the root of the Outlaw Solutions & Concepts was recognizing patterns. Once we establish a good product with our development process how do we make sure it repeats? The dilemma we often face is who has the responsibility of recognizing patterns of change that prevent the pattern of the desired product from repeating so it gives us the same results without affecting our cost. so whaalla!
Welcome to the world of Quality control…. It can be our best friend and worst nightmare.
In production we often believe that no one likes to hear the word “rejected” (for obvious reasons stated above) than the quality inspector. To hear those words means he just busted you for making a mistake, and to him it means he just did a good job. Now click on the next menu button and lets talk about how to manage the quality department to our advantage.
Defining Quality
Everyone has their own idea and experience about what they think quality is. But in the world of molding it is defined by consistency. The ability to produce the same thing over keeps us from having unexpected results when we go out of the boundaries we have defined. We use combinations of systems and tools to achieve this and they are all interdependent.
Here are just a few things you may need:
- Process Control Charts
- Systems for Audits
- Samples of Defects
- End of Run
- Review Board for Gray Areas
If you would like to know more about how to use these concepts you can attend one of our free seminars. Please give us a call at 727-480-7255 or send us an email at doutlaw@outlawsolutionsandconcepts.com to find out when how to attend.