For a wide range of manufacturing organizations

8/7/2019 For a wide range of manufacturing organizations

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For a wide range of manufacturing organizations, the global economy is truly the best of allpossible worlds. Since they are able to outsource the manufacturing of components,

subassemblies and entire product lines to the worlds most competitively priced suppliers, theycan take advantage of enormous cost-efficiencies that help them succeed in an increasingly

crowded international marketplace. Looking back at events of the past few years, however, itsclear that global outsourcing can also be something of a double-edged sword when it comes to

quality and quality management.

In recent years, there have been hundreds of costly product recalls due to manufacturing qualityissues, ranging from automobiles, to computer batteries, to products as innocuous as toys. In

addition, control and management of these quality issues has been hampered by a lack ofactionable visibility into supplier processes. The question becomes not just how to avoid specific

quality problems, but how to ensure that your suppliers meet allyour quality standards.

Widespread Recalls

Although they garner much of the publicity, toys arent the only products being recalled. Cribs,baby bottles, sandals, childrens jewelry, car safety seats, pet food, toothpaste, even jackets and

hoodies have been recalled due to a broad variety of health and safety issues.

These are hardly isolated problems. Although outsourcing is here to stay, the fact is more than

70 percent of the worlds largest manufacturers have had some negative experiences with

partners in their supply chain, says Kevin Prouty, senior director of manufacturing solutions,Motorola. The question is, what to do about them.

Outsourced Quality Management

Investigations into many of these problems have focused largely on a lack of quality control inoutsourced manufacturing operations in developing countries around the world. Given the fact

that different countries have different manufacturing standards for quality, the burden of qualitymanagement and assurance falls ultimately on the original manufacturers. Theyre also the ones

that suffer the fallout in terms of lost sales and tarnished images. So what processes aremanufacturers using to help them manage quality in their supply chains? There are basically four

methods:

y Reliance on the Supplier. Some manufacturers feel confident enough to rely on theirsuppliers, especially those whose quality processes have proven to be effective over the

long term.


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y Extensive Inspection. A number of manufacturers rely on ensuring an intensiveinspection process for incoming materials.

y Collaboration. Enabling closer collaboration with suppliers is a method that establishes acommon ground by using a number of shared quality systems and processes.

y Single System. To maximize manufacturing synergies, many organizations believe inmandating that their suppliers use the same quality management system they use in theirown manufacturing operations.

Each of these methods has its adherents, and often companies use a combination of them. Butwith todays increased public scrutiny on quality, more and more manufacturers are opting to

make the effort to integrate their suppliers into their own quality management systems.

You Cant Inspect Quality In

The most thorough inspection process can only report on lack of quality, not build it in. Relying

on trust or collaborative efforts still leaves a significant degree of uncertainty. The surest method

of quality management in the supply chain remains making sure all manufacturing supply chainprocesseswhether internal or externalare thoroughly integrated. Companies that choose thisquality management strategyincluding Ford and Toyota among countless othersgenerally

follow three steps:

y The first step is due diligence in choosing an outsourcing partner, checking on bothphysical capabilities and underlying financial health.

y Step two is risk mitigation through the compiling of full and accurate process informationfrom the partner and the sharing of proprietary quality management procedures and

technology with the supplier.y The last step is the ongoing improvement and optimization of quality processes through

every link of the supply chain.

The key to each of these steps is information. Information that is timely, accurate and accessibleanytime and anywhere to anyone and everyone who needs it.

Information: Quantitative vs. Qualitative

How do manufacturers obtain the information needed for successfully managing qualityprocesses throughout the supply chain? For most manufacturing organizations, information

gathering begins with their Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems. These systems,however, tend to be transactional in nature, focusing heavily on quantitative data. When and

where were the components delivered? What was the price? Were the pieces inspected? Whenand where? Did they pass inspection?

Thorough quality verification, however, needs to include much more than simple transactional

information, going deeper into the data and answering a different, more comprehensive set ofquestions. What materials were used in the process, and to what parameters were theymanufactured? Did any of the materials deviate from specified parameters and if so, were the


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problems corrected? What specific corrective actions were taken? Is there documentation tosupport satisfactory resolution? And many, many more.

Clipboard vs. Computer

Successful global quality management systems rely on access to crucial information in real time,virtually anywhere in the world. This can be an enormous issue since a great many outsourcingpartners, especially those in developing countries, are married to their clipboards and mired in

paperwork. Paperwork is the enemy of productivity, emphasizes Motorolas Prouty. Thereality is, every time a worker touches a piece of paper, productivity is reduced. Ultimately, so is

visibility. Once collected, the data must be organized and manually entered into computers forcapturing, storing and providing access across the organization. Time is wasted. Accuracy is lost.

Quality suffers.

Mobile Technology and Quality Control

As Prouty says, Once you start outsourcing, you own the manufacturing processes of yoursupply chain. Thats why todays most progressive manufacturers have a different quality

management model. They concentrate on building a system designed to deliver good

information, then they eliminate the clipboard by putting mobile technology on top of thesystem.

Implementation of this strategy is relatively straightforward. The organization embeds its quality

management processes onto handheld computers which are shipped to all outsource partners.The computers use technology such as barcode scanning and RFID to capture, consolidate, store

and provide access to quality data throughout the system. Data is sent in real-time or near-real-time, so information isnt merely archival, its actionable. In the longer term, the data provides

an easily accessible electronic trail for identifying and correcting problems.

Monitoring Suppliers Suppliers

Recent investigations of recalled products have identified one of the biggest obstacles to

worldwide quality control: the suppliers supply chain. In one tragic instance, the owner of amanufacturing company took his own life because a factory owned by his best friend had

supplied paint with high lead content to his operation. Mobile technology can be used to providedevices embedded with automated quality processes not just to principal suppliers, but also to the

suppliers suppliers, providing a longer and stronger electronic documentation of materials andprocesses.

Return on Investment

All businesses that demand documented return on investment and mobile quality managementsystems measure ROI in two important ways. In traditional business terms, mobility systems

such as those from Motorola can deliver demonstrable return on investment relatively quickly.Return is documented for many of the most important aspects of manufacturing outsourcing:


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y Productivity. Mobile technology can significantly reduce or eliminate work- and time-intensive paperwork.

y Visibility. Real-time data capture and delivery provides timely access to vital datawhenever and wherever needed.

y Quality. By embedding automated quality management procedures and processes onto ahandheld mobile computer, global manufacturers are able to verify quality for everysupplier in the supply chain

y Auditability. Mobile quality management systems provide a critical electronic trail of themanufacturing processes and materials used to make every product and componentinsome cases a requirement for achieving regulatory compliance.

Leaner Manufacturing

There are many obstacles to global quality management, with the use of unsafe materials and

substandard processes generally topping the list. Just as problematic, though, is the lack ofaccurate information due to error-prone paper-based data capture. Manual processes also can

cause visibility issues resulting from significant lag times in providing access to critical qualityinformation.

Mobile technology can help manufacturers achieve leaner, more efficient processes throughoutthe supply chain. It can play a critical role in monitoring and managing raw materials and

manufacturing processes for problems such as using paint with unacceptable levels of lead. Inaddition, it can streamline the processes themselves by helping simplify and speed-up the

capturing, storing and real-time retrieving of critical quality data from every component of thesupply chain

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For a wide range of manufacturing organizations