Reducing False Failures in Metrology

1. Reducing False Failures inMetrology TECH 581: Measure Phase John R. Ulrich Fall 2013

2. 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.

4. Voice of the Customer Analysis • Key stakeholders surveyed: • CEO • COO • Director of Metrology/Quality Manager • Service Manager • Clients

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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. KPOV’s are the number of failures per month KPIV’s 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.

10. Process Map

11. 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.

12. Checksheet

13. Spaghetti Diagram

14. 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

15. Data File used for Graphs:

17. 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. That’s 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 wasn’t 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.