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Process faling apart, I Need a srategy.
QUESTION:I have a problem. A very serious problem. I work for a company that
manufactures car parts, and the process I am responsible for is falling
apart. I am trying to improve it. I need a strategy, here is my
situation.
I am a quality engineer and customer relations
rep. The machine I am concerned about is falling apart, variation is
extremely high. The machine is scheduled for overhaul and rebuild in
August. We are ramping up production, and have been for the last 2
months. The machine will be down for an estimated 3 weeks. The machine
makes the most expensive part in our entire facility. The parts are die
cast aluminum and we cast them only, machining happens at our customer.
The defectives we encounter are primarily porosity and soldering / non
cleanup.
Detection is almost non-existant for porosity
and very subjective for soldering. A ship ahead regime is our only
detection method and many shifts of parts may be made before any
defectives are found. We have limited changepoint control.
I have worked for this company for 6 years, going on
7. I can see clearly the path it must take to improve, but it will take
alot of investment and a major culture change.
The customer has been somewhat patient, but this won't
last for very much longer. Countermeasures have been lame as of late,
always claiming August as the magic time of change. Te machine will be
overhauled, which is a good thing, but what of today? The customer is
running parts we produced a month ago. Some very significant
countermeasures have been implemened, yet left unproven. Half-assed
analysis has been the norm for so long. We have had countermeasures for
porosity making the soldering worse and countermeasures for soldering
making the porosity worse.
I am about as frustrated as they come, I need a
strategy to combat upper management ambivalence, middle management
neglect, and operator apathy. Not to mention quality / customer
relations burnout. My process is flawed, out of control, and incapable.
I am about ready to start writing my resume, but I hate to quit! I need
a strategy, a tactic. Any ideas?
ANSWER: I used to work in a die casting facility also, but on the machining side
of things. They used to have the same situation. Production over quality.
They closed the place down because customers just won't put up with crap
quality. This plant was owned by one of the US's larger die casters too.
When I first went to work there, they were privately owned, and quality
mattered most. When they got bought out by the big corporation, things
went to hell in a hand basket. I've ran baskets upon baskets of parts
that got sorted through for 'the best of the bunch' and those went to the
customer, the rest went back in the furnace. This happened weekly.
Agreed, porosity, flow lines, and non fill are the bane of any aluminum
casting process.
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