5 manufacturing quality metrics that really matter

 

What gets measured gets done. It might be an old cliché, but it still rings true for manufacturers today. Only by collecting the right data in your business can you make steps to improve. But which measures should you rely on?

RIGHT FIRST TIME ROUND

How many products reach the end of the production line and are dispatched to the customer without the need for rework? This is an essential measure that determines whether the production process has an inherent problem, as well as measuring any resultant waste.

SCRAP RATE

Keeping on top of operational costs is critical to business profitability, so you need to know the percentage of materials sent to production that don’t make it into a finished product. This is the scrap rate – in other words, the amount of scrap your company produces.

SUPPLIER DEFECT RATE

If your production line has a multi-tiered and complex supplier base, the Supplier Defect Rate becomes an important measure. This is the percentage of materials and products received along the entire supply chain that fail to meet quality and compliance specifications. Again, you would use the DPMO or PPM method above. For example, if you had 25 defective pieces in a shipment of 1,000

CUSTOMER FEEDBACK

Are you listening to what your customers are saying? Build customer feedback into your quality metrics:

  • Rejects: How many times do customers reject products or request returns of products for different reasons?
  • Complaints: Nature of customer complaint – was the complaint resolved and how long did it take?

 

RECAP

Establishing a framework of good metrics is essential to ensuring quality in any business. By first understanding what is happening, you can start focusing on the “WHY” and make steps towards moving your manufacturing business to the next level.

Speaking of metrics, this free whitepaper takes you through how not to be the average plant that wastes up to 40% of its capacity through stops, speed losses, interruptions and defects.

 

Why? Because the right metrics can give you a holistic picture of what’s going on in the business and help you identify areas where you can improve processes and enhance efficiency. With the right quality metrics, you can also ensure you’re meeting internal and external quality and compliance standards too. These days, that’s not something to take lightly.

 

A reputation for great quality will lift any company above the competition. And poor quality will lead it to the depths of business despair even quicker. The reality is that capturing the right quality metrics is critical for manufacturers of every size, in every industry.