PLM-Centric Quality Management
We’ve been writing a lot about the benefits of increasing communication and collaboration by breaking down traditional functional barriers in manufacturing. When searching for the solution to a problem, collective knowledge is almost always the better choice. Manufacturing software and IT advancements are highlighting the fact that compartmentalizing information, or keeping it in what many refer to as silos, is inefficient and often results in sub-optimal decisions.
Quality, for instance, is a great example
of how a single process is often monitored by many disparate management
systems across the value chain. Companies understand that quality is
important, but areas such as engineering, manufacturing, and the global
supply network manage it differently. However, when integrated
correctly, it can be a powerful tool. One area that we believe it can
make a particular impact in is Product Lifecycle Management (PLM). By
measuring quality at the conception of an idea, issues can be assessed
and resolved through the product's life until disposal.
In this blog, we'll discuss the importance
of quality in the manufacturing process and also begin our discussion of
PLM-centric quality management.
Why is Quality Important?
Because the quality of an organization’s
products has various effects on productivity, cost, compliance, and
safety as well as a multitude of other areas, quality is a pervasive
issue and should be watched vigilantly. Nonconformances that directly
touch consumers can manifest as changes in reputation, legal issues, and
backlash on increased prices. As each of these issues can have grave
consequences, especially for the cost of quality, we will start our
discussion of why quality is important here.
Mentioned in prior blog posts, the cost of quality
is an equation with two variables: the cost of good quality and the
cost of poor quality. Lacking communication and feedback in different
phases of product design, production, and post-production has adverse
effects on both cost of good and poor quality. For example, a siloed
customer complaint, which could have helped to fix a persisting
nonconformance in design, may have a drastic impact on reputation,
pricing, productivity, safety, and compliance down the road. Because
these quality issues can surface in many ways, the earlier we begin
monitoring the cost of quality, the more accurately we can estimate and
control it during a product's life.
Combining PLM and Quality
The issue of managing systems or single
processes in silos is nothing new. Many different types of software have
targeted this problem, perhaps none more successfully than PLM. It
helps companies better manage workflows and product data at each stage
of product development, delivery, service, and end-of-life processes.
Understood as both a technology and methodology, PLM is designed to
connect multiple disciplines of engineering as well as with the broader
value chain.
As we continually advocate for
collaboration in manufacturing, LNS Research believes that PLM is a
strong focal point for managing quality within both single processes and
acorss the enterprise. In our next blog, we'll inspect how PLM and
quality can be used together to drive business performance.
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