What is a free Quality Engineer worth to you? In this installment, we test drive that question, because the US will always be a nation of cars and drivers. A new study says roughly 95% of Americans own or have access to a car or truck and they are going places given the US boasts the largest network of roads in the world at over 4.1M miles. What keeps these cars on the road are the quality standards employed by assemblers and part makers around the world.
To support these efforts, TSC Auto ID is offering your enterprise a free Quality Engineer with the purchase of all ODV systems. How? And, why? First, because cost of quality remains high in the automotive industry representing 10-40% of sales, according to recent data. In this TSC Auto ID blog series ‘Rev Up Your Savings: Free Quality Engineer for Automotive’ we’ll first answer why this creates value for your enterprise.
You Already Know You Need a Quality Program like PPAP & APQP
Because the best investments in Quality Function Deployment (QFD) always consist of preventative efforts.
- Utilizing statistical process control (SPC) like control charting can catch mistakes before they are detected.
- Performing Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) can de-risk failures by predicting likeliness and severity leading to error proof designs and processes.
- Employing a Production Part Approval Process (PPAP) ensures specifications are met and reduces delays and nonconformances.
- Working within the Advanced Product Quality Planning (APQP) system reduces the cost of quality by aggregating these and other tools within complex supply chains to support continuous improvements, process changes, and new products.
Automotive quality engineers use these Core tools during the design and scale-up process to build cars that are capable, attractive and safe. In the same way our ODV-2D systems for thermal printers are designed to provide 100% automated label inspection and barcode verification. We control chart your printers’ performance over time alerting the need to perform cleaning or routine maintenance and use ISO 15415 and 15416 to examine failure modes that can arise during printer performance reducing your RPN risk factors. The printer self-identifies labels below your set standard of quality and immediately overstrikes them to prevent their use downstream. Afterward, our system immediately fixes the error by reprinting the required label. Your quality inspection data is traced and associated to every label you print using individual and batch job reports providing your operation the closest thing you can get to having your own dedicated quality engineer for your labeling and auto ID workflows.
Meet the ODV-2D: AÂ Nearly Free Automotive Quality Engineer
Quality is important and always top of mind, but so is cost. Your operation can now hire a dedicated quality engineer that works day and night for a modest one-time starting bonus, zero salary, zero vacation days and zero risk. The ODV-2D offers automated and worry-free barcode verification and label inspection to your value stream and is a natural upgrade for your existing label printing operation.
Success Story: Auto Customer
An automotive parts manufacturer reached out to us because they were routinely getting fined $100-250 due to disruptions at their assembly customer caused by poor label quality. The barcodes were difficult or impossible to scan and created the need to transpose human-readable data. In some cases, they had to recall the entire pallet for rework. The fines and disruptions finally stopped after we helped them replace their printers with high-quality TSC Printronix T8000s with ODV-2D verifiers. It turns out inspecting their labels had a strong return on investment (ROI). The cost of the ODV-2D system paid for itself within weeks of installation and continues to save them time and headaches to this day, improving customer satisfaction, their overall quality and profitability from additional business.
Credit : TSC Blog
