Case Number One: Over-sampling

The Client
A producer of electronic components in a high volume manufacturing environment.

The Problem
After first electrical test it was discovered that an inordinate amount of product was being retested after failing inspection in final QA. The effects were increased cost in manufacturing, reduced through-put time to assembly and considerable additional paperwork/documentation. It was also discovered that up to 30% of all work going through the area had to be reworked although the documentation didn’t show this fact.

The Performance Improvement Approach
We analyzed the flow of product from the initial receipt of the product into the test area, through documentation, test, Quality Assurance and shipment to assembly. By involving technical test employees we were able to identify not only potential problem areas but also uncovered an invisible bottleneck caused by over inspection of test results prior to QA. Employees were returning product that had failed inspection to the person responsible, allowing them to rework the product without documenting the failure. This meant the final production numbers showed only about one third of the failures while QA was finding the rest at final inspection.

The solution was to streamline the product flow through the test area, eliminate additional process inspections except for final QA and hold each employee accountable for their own work.

The Result
Within three months, the area was producing the highest quality work in the entire company. Job satisfaction improved as people were recognized and rewarded for the good work they were doing. Through-put time to final QA improved allowing the company to ship higher volumes to assembly thus increasing the available product to sales.

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