I had a good talk with Clive J. Greenwood, founder of P1 Manufacturing Quality Consultants, and he agreed to answer a Q&A on the topic of process controls in China factories. He completed the Motorola Six Sigma Black Belt program and has been applying statistics for controlling operations for a long time. He has been involved in manufacturing in China for over 25 years! Clive noted that most companies rely on certification and end of line inspection, and he has found enormous variation in … [Read more...]
Defining and Enforcing Manufacturing Processes for Better Control
As David Collins from CMC often says, there are 5 key success factors that determine a factory’s performance: Production Planning, Incoming Material, Workforce Training, Process Control and Equipment Maintenance. In this article, I'd like to focus two of these success factors: workforce training and process control. And, more specifically, on the way to evaluate how manufacturing processes were defined and how they are kept in place in daily practice. I am reading the latest edition … [Read more...]
Exploring Process Audits | Vetting Chinese Suppliers (Part 7) [Podcast]
Why perform process audits? So far in this mini-series of podcasts about vetting Chinese suppliers we've discussed what quality audits and social compliance audits are and their respective benefits. Since auditing prospective suppliers is such an important part of vetting new suppliers, we now move on to another type of audit: Process audits. These audits focus on a supplier's manufacturing reliability and will aim to answer the questions: Are they truly experts in the production … [Read more...]
11 Steps To Set Up a Process Control Plan
About 2 years ago, I wrote about the 3 process improvement tools we use most often. And today I'd like to do a deep dive into one of them -- the process control plan. … [Read more...]
Understanding Manufacturing Process Controls in Your Factory
Turning raw material into a finished product can be a complex process. It usually requires more steps than a layperson would think and more controls along these process steps. This is where a firm grasp of manufacturing process controls becomes useful. … [Read more...]