What problems do organizations face
during the implementation of changes in their product designs and how do they
control them?
For answering this question, I
will take some assumptions:
1. The
organization in question has a diverse product range.2. The
organization in question is sufficiently large such that engineering changes
cannot be easily implemented by word of mouth.
3. For
the organization in question, achieving high quality is of utmost concern.
4. The
cutoff date/cutoff batch/cutoff machine for design change is extremely
important. 5. The
product manufacturing lead time is sufficiently large to effect long spares/raw
material inventory.
Any mid-large scale manufacturing
industry is always in constant state of self-improvement for its survival. Self-improvements
might directly refer to value engineering (design changes, raw material wastage
reduction, process improvements, quality improvements etc.) or to introduction
of a new design all together.
In our case, we are more
concerned about the design changes which a company wants to implement. For an
industry with a diverse range of products having large production quantities,
such changes can be particularly difficult to implement. A few of the major problems include:
1. .Inability
of the organization to supply new drawings and remove old ones from all the
workstations in its workshops.
2. Inability
of the organization to supply new drawings and remove old ones to all the concerned
vendors.
3. Inability
of the organization to modify the designated standard production process according
to change in the design.
4. Inadequate
training of the workforce to identify changes in the drawings.
5. Inability
of the organization to modify existing/manufacture new process aids
(jigs/fixtures) to help implement the design changes.
The above problems can be solved
by using a very flexible design change cycle. The cycle starts by the design
department requesting the desired changes in any existing part. These changes
are then passed on to the process engineering and development group. This group
has representatives/experts from each core competence field of the company (Eg.
Machining, Fabrication, Painting etc.). The design changes are then rigorously
checked for their feasibility and manufacturing ease. The decision to manufacture
the component in house or offload it to a vendor is taken by this group. If the
product is to be manufactured in house, the group triggers the action by first
information all the concerned shops (machining, fabrication etc.). Any change
in the existing production aids design is reviewed as a priority. A review is
conducted to check the cost of implantation of a design change w.r.t the
importance/criticality of its implantation. All old drawings are collected and
destroyed by the process engineering group. New drawings are issued with
adequate control instructions. If any
alteration needs to be done in the production process, then a process sheet is
released (with adequate control instructions) detailing the minute details of
the standard production process to be adopted. The Quality Assurance department
is tasked with updating the cutoff date/cutoff batch/cutoff machine in which the
design change has been implemented. This is done to ensure that the spares
manual is updated. In case the parts are made by vendors then similar process
is adopted by the vendor support group of the process engineering group.
Despite adequate checks in place, no system/process is full proof as human
error always comes into play. Thus, sometimes non implementation of design
changes can result in creation of unsafe conditions, reduction in quality, high
rework costs etc.
CORELOGS
