Is zero PPM possible?
KRasmus572
How do we get to zero PPM?
Who is at zero PPM?
How did they do it?
Does our current APQP deliver zero PPM designs, tools, materials and processes?
Are customers willing to pay for zero PPM?
Variation is natural and exists.
Variation can be measured and reduced but not eliminated.
Abstract theories abound but what is the reality?
Paul Beven
There is always a finite probability (however small) that you will get
defective units.
When people report zero-defects or even six-sigma, I would always question
their basis for measurement.
Continuous type data rules OK!
"KRasmus572" <krasm...@aol.comlessspam> wrote in message
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Wayne Lundberg
or almost any internal combustion engine firing away billions of times
without a miss. When the process is designed RIGHT then the output must be
right. All too many people in industry are hooked on the QA aspect AFTER the
fact. Quality must be built in to the system to start with.
Trouble with that idea is that it would put QA managers and teams out of a
job!!!
KRasmus572 <krasm...@aol.comlessspam> wrote in message
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notsellinathing
"Wayne Lundberg" <Wayn...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
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trouble with that idea is that it would put QA managers and teams out of a
Wayne Lundberg
been GM for a dozen outfits including my own, whenever I hire a QA person -
from inspector to manager - on the first day I tell them they must start
looking for another position in my company once they have eliminated their
job in QA.
notsellinathing <not...@anymore.net> wrote in message
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CP
> Since 1967 when I opened my machine shop in Denver, to this day after
having
> been GM for a dozen outfits including my own, whenever I hire a QA
person -
> from inspector to manager - on the first day I tell them they must start
> looking for another position in my company once they have eliminated their
> job in QA.
I often tell companies that a good QA manager's primary role should be to
make himself and his department obsolete. After they panic for a few
seconds, they usually get my meaning.
CP
Wayne Lundberg
CP <cpa...@hotmailNOSPAM.com> wrote in message
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Michael Bielert
>
> Is zero PPM possible?
That will depend on the metrics you're using.
> How do we get to zero PPM?
Again, depends on the metrics you chose to use.
> Who is at zero PPM?
I hear of companies saying they're at ppm, but when asked to provide
proof, they have rarely been as good as they say they were.
> How did they do it?
I think that ppm/6 sigma is more of a (I'm sorry for the cliche here)
journey than a destination. Even if you do achieve a 6 sigma level, you
have to have things in place to maintain that level on an ongoing basis.
Just because you're calculations/software says you're at that level,
doesn't mean you stay there.
> Does our current APQP deliver zero PPM designs, tools, materials and processes?
>
> Are customers willing to pay for zero PPM?
You're kidding right!? Customers don't care what it costs you to reach
ppm, but you damm well better reduce the price of your product when you
do hit it! I had a customer tell me flat out that $$$$ drives
everything. Good Delivery performance is expected, excellent quality is
expected so the only thing left is pricing!
> Variation is natural and exists.
> Variation can be measured and reduced but not eliminated.
>
> Abstract theories abound but what is the reality?
Comes down to process control! If you can control your processes, you
can improve them and reduce the amount of variation.
Mike
notsellinathing
Eliminate your job...i.e take manufacturing: machines and computers would
be making the widgets, computers doing the accounting etc. Well, we have a
plant in the UK that is something out of the future: it is huge, and when
you walk in the door you do not see a soul until you get to the control
room then you see the two guys who run the whole thing. It is actually quite
eerie. Even the warehouse which I still think about from time to time was a
robot auomatically going up and down in the rows taking product out and
putting stuff back in. One forklift driver for the entire operation.
Absolutely unbelievable.
"Wayne Lundberg" <Wayn...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
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CP
> taken to an extreme, woluld this not be the objective of all employees?
> Eliminate your job...i.e take manufacturing: machines and computers would
> be making the widgets, computers doing the accounting etc.
No, I think there is a distinct difference between the hypothetical intent
of quality personnel making themselves obsolete and the practical intent of
automation making jobs obsolete.
An operator should have no vested interest, hypothetical or otherwise, is
replacing himself with a machine (or another lower-paid worker, for that
matter.) That's a different thing than an inspector making himself obsolete
by reducing defects to zero.
And if it sounds like I'm advocating actually firing those inspectors,
that's not the case. Success at reducing defects to zero would impy that
progressive evolution would then lead to the next phase, and the next job:
quality improvement (QI.) Since the US and UK are barely out of the QC mode
of thinking, we have a long way to go before this hypothetical scenario ever
becomes real enough to discuss seriously. But what a world it would be!
CP
Michael Schlueter
In a sense, it is not desireable ;-)
PPM's reflect defects, i.e. things you *do not* want.
Eliminating any defect (e.g. down to 0.0000012ppm) does
NOT guarantee that your product is performing as *intended*
at all.
Example:
Differences in salery can be seen as a defect: it is not righteous
that different people earn different amount of money for the
same work. It should be the same for everybody. - Paying
everybody $0.00 removes both variability and defect level,
but is certainly against any intended function of salery ;-)
So the better approach is to express, and measure,
*intended function(s) *. - This requires a very sharp mind,
compared to defining defects only.
* How do we get to zero PPM?
1) observe and use common sense
2) apply process control (SPC)
3) apply on-line quality control (SPC++)
4) apply parameter design, best during R&D
Parameter Design quantifies the effect of changes in design
parameters on both, mean and sigma. In other words: you can
tune variability and on-target levels by design decisions.
* Who is at zero PPM?
There were already good comments.
Tricky guys widen their specification range, while leaving
process variation as it is, until PPM became acceptable ...
Clearly a DON'T.
* How did they do it?
See above. Basically: do a good design. Select the most robust design.
* Does our current APQP deliver zero PPM designs, tools, materials and
processes?
No idea. But I doubt, because that is a different approach.
* Are customers willing to pay for zero PPM?
Customer pay for a product, whose function(s) help them
achieving individual objectives.E.g. I intend my car to bring me
to my working place, while somebody else intends to transport
heavy loads.
Any deviation, which spoils the product performing the intended
function for the customer, causes a monetary loss to this customer:
e.g. a delay, an extra-cost, a complaint cycle etc. As a result such
a product causes a loss to the manufacturer: e.g. lost customers,
lost sales, high return rates (new scrap) etc. It can also cause loss to
society: think of any products end-of-life; somebody has to pay for
that storage, too.
So in reality, customers will very well notice un-intended functions.
Some clever person will call them 'defect' for administration purposes.
Customers, in reality, already pay for low-quality, e.g. for product
replacement. (Think for example of all your ambitious plans you
wanted your old 386PC to perform ... Today your Pentium may
have come close to that plans ...).
Customers will select that product, which causes them minimal
monetary loss. - The ideal product costs (almost) nothing and incures
(almost) no additional harm.
* Variation is natural and exists.
Yes, but you can significantly impact on it by design decisions.
Parameter Design will lead you into a situation, where the worst
variability CAN exist, but simply does not change the results
from your product (or process). Because: the product became
insensitive to those. - That's quality engineering. As a side effect
those products tend to be cheap, high performant, long lasting ;-)
* Variation can be measured and reduced but not eliminated.
Yes, but the difference is:
- variation at a harmful level
or
- variation at a harmless level
GPS is a good example. 24 satellites orbit around the earth,
sending signals at the same frequency, at a signal level which
is *lower* than the natural noise on earth. In other words:
by conventional means nobody can see the signals, just noise.
Ambient electrical noise is absolutely harmful for GPS. However,
GPS signals exploit the difference between a truely random signal
and a pseudo-random (=correlated) signal. If you average the
received signal, natural noise elimnates itself, while a beautiful
signal remains. By clever design strong harm has been turned into
a (relative) harmless thingy.
* Abstract theories abound but what is the reality?
See above.
There are plenty of case studies on parameter design. E.g. from
Rank-Xerox, Kodak, ITT, Boeing, Ford, JPL, Nitsuko, NEC, Nissan,
FujiFilms, Clarion, LSI, Philips Semiconductors, to name a few big
names.
Parameter Design is not widely used, unfortunately. Where it is
done, either incapable designs are singled out early (which is a good
money saving thing) or defects have a much harder time to occur ...
Michael Schlueter
srikr...@gmail.com
1. Thermostat manufacturing
2. Connecting Rod Manufacturing.
This is our phase 1 rollout.
In this phase we already achieved that whatever goes out of the final production line to the end customer is with zero PPM and ensured with a QR code in every component for 100% tracebility.
In our phase 2 rollout, we are planning to attempt zero ppm in the entire manufacturing process of these 2 components.
If any one needs more details and site visit please let me know.
Thanks,