Quality improvement strategies and implementation methods

Hartman Industries LLC is a leader in the plastic injection molding industry. Many of the products we produce require precision manufacturing and are used in the medical industry. Hartman offers state-of-the-art innovative design capabilities, best-of-breed quality control systems, and exceptional shipping and handling processes. We manufacture to International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 9000 standards and have Six Sigma black belt capability through all stages of the manufacturing process. Our quality management challenge is an artifact of running operations in six domestic and one international location.

Seven distinct programs. Each plant at the seven different locations operates under an extensive quality improvement plan. There is only one type of weak link in the infrastructure, and it is a weakness of omission. There is not an overarching plan that addresses coordination of the quality control programs from plant to plant. Although the quality control programs have developed at the separate sites in response to identified needs over a long period of time, separate is not assumed to be equal. This proposal seeks to remedy that situation by instituting a centralized quality management program that enables the company to capture and analyze quality-related issues, and provides a means of tracing and monitoring quality problems in real time across the supplier network and the global Hartman sites.

Centralized Quality Management

Based on our current process flow-chart, there are inspection points in the Molding Department and the Trimming stages. However, there are no quality control inspections for the first three stages of production: (a) Receiving (b) Mold Fabrication Department and (c) Mixing Department. It should be noted that each of the six domestic plants may at any time be considered to be a supplier. Some products are completed at a particular plant and shipped from that plant, such that a self-contained assessment process may appear to suffice. Other times, the manufacturing of the product line requires coordination across the manufacturing plant sites.

Supply chain quality management. The current system lacks total transparency and visibility into the supply chain which can impact non-spec rates three stages into production. The proposed centralized quality management will enable the following process checks at the Receiving level: (a) Track and report on shortages, delays, and defective parts; (b) track supplier metrics over time through the use of customized scorecards; (c) rate, rank, and collaborate with suppliers to solve problems; (d) manage supplier corrective actions and control costs by producing products to spec the first time; and (e) establish automatic escalation and notification of problems in real time.