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Slide 2 Reducing False Failures in Metrology TECH 581: Measure Phase John R. Ulrich Fall 2013 Slide 3 Brief Review of Project: Reducing False failures in Metrology The purpose of this project is to help Tangent Labs reduce the number of false failures for calibration it routinely experiences. By reducing the number of false failures, the clients will have increased confidence in the service they pay for. The primary target is to get the percentage of failures under 10% as it is currently about 27%. With the national average of failures being around 5% for all calibrations, it is clear Tangent Labs is false failing too many pieces of equipment. The confidence a client has with a laboratory means everything in this industry. Improving the process of calibration from the moment the sales team takes an order to the final step of placing a calibration sticker on a gage is the focus of the project. Slide 4 SIPOC SuppliersInputsProcessOutputsCustomers Sales RepresentativeSets up orderPROCESS: Calibration of equipment Calibrated EquipmentQuality Manager Approves order, decides capability Clients Service ManagerGets equipment into the labs Check-out Department Lab TechnicianCalibrates equipment Outside calibration services Calibrates equipment Tangent Labs uses Calibration Software Company Provides software to track failures Slide 5 Voice of the Customer Analysis Key stakeholders surveyed: CEO COO Director of Metrology/Quality Manager Service Manager Clients Slide 6 VoC SWOT Analysis Strengths Have good enough equipment to ensure no false failures occur Have reputation in industry for being reliable Director of Metrology has been trained by a Doctored mentor in measurement and can offer good implementation techniques Support from CEO and COO Enough capital to make improvements should any be monetary in nature Slide 7 VoC SWOT Analysis Weaknesses Front end of office (sales) does not communicate with back end (technicians) Each department operates in a silo Not enough cross trained technicians Lack of meetings to address failures Lack of motivation among technicians to ensure calibration is correct Slide 8 VoC SWOT Analysis Opportunities Improve overall communication between the front end and back end Improve quality of training of technicians to provide quality calibrations Build confidence with CEO and COO that calibrations are being done correctly Restore the culture of the team being a family and all helping out Slide 9 VoC SWOT Analysis Threats Could possibly create a bigger division and resentment between front end and back end Could cost too much money if extra monitoring is needed Technician pushback is a possible issue Calibration turn around times could be slowed Decreased sales if sales reps have to learn new systems Slide 10 Customers are the management team as well as the technicians and myself. CTQ is definitely setting up the calibrations right with the proper information before the equipment even gets into the lab. KPOVs are the number of failures per month KPIVs how many sales did each salesman bring in and what percentage of those did we have all the right information to calibrate correctly. Another one is did the template team set up the template correctly once they got the information from the sales team. If the templates are set up correctly, the calibrations should be straightforward. If they are set up incorrectly they could cause a false failure. Slide 11 Process Map Slide 12 Process Observation Worksheet (not included in this presentation) The purpose of this project is to reduce the number of false failures when calibrating clients equipment. The aim has more to do with the quality of calibrations, ensuring the right technicians are performing the calibrations, and that the technicians are trained well enough to each calibration rather than a concern over time. It has also more to do with proper communication between the front office staff when they take an order and relaying that information correctly to the back end of the office where check-in and the actual calibration occurs. Had this been a project on improving the number of expedited calibrations getting out on time, or making sure calibrations are completed within the standard 3 day turnaround time, then yes time would have been a factor. However this has more to do with the quality of work being performed. Slide 13 Checksheet Slide 14 Spaghetti Diagram Slide 15 Data Collection Plan Number of failures per month How many templates not set up correctly How many times did sales team get wrong information leading to a failure Was the technician signed off to perform calibration Data collected over a week (10/14-10/19) Sample size was to be around 20-25 failures.20 were sampled Will graphically present: Bar graph showing total number of failures per day vs number of good failures Bar graph showing how many failures per day due to sales error, template error, or technician error Slide 16 Data File used for Graphs: Date:Failure #Technician Signed offFailure good?Template CorrectSales Info Correct 14-Oct1YYYY 2YNNY 3YYYY 4YYYY 15-Oct5YYYY 6YYYY 16-Oct7YNNN 8YNNY 17-Oct9YYYY 10YYYY 17-Oct11NNYY 17-Oct12YYYY 17-Oct13YYYY 17-Oct14YNNN 18-Oct15YYYY 18-Oct16YYYY 18-Oct17NNYY 19-Oct18YNNY 19-Oct19NNNN 19-Oct20YYYY Slide 17 Slide 18 Graphical Analysis Most failures happen on Wednesday. Most shipments arrive on Tuesday from major clients Sales team got their information correct all but one day Technicians performing calibrations they are not signed off on should be zer0. That is a huge defect. Number of failures that were good to bad was 8 false failures out of 20. Thats almost 50%. Template failure happened 6 out of 20 times, a little over 25% Over the course of a year this is an extremely small sample size and it wasnt a very busy week so it is not representative of the entire gamete of gages Tangent Labs sees. More data will allow for better patterns to emerge about where the discrepancies are.