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Improve Operations
A manufacturing company without tools for quality control in manufacturing might as well close up shop. Quality control is essential to running a successful manufacturing operation. Without it, you’ll spend too much time reworking product, wasting materials, hampering your reputation with clients when it comes to performing quality work, and ultimately losing profits to inefficient processes.
Effective management of daily operations on the manufacturing floor hinges on how well the staff uses quality control tools. Quality control tools help shed light on the operational procedures that are most important to ensure that orders get filled correctly and products come off the line meeting every client and industry specification. These tools make it possible to increase efficiency and quality on the floor and will bring satisfaction to the workforce and contribute positively to the bottom line.
Quality control has to be on point at all times to keep a manufacturing shop running at optimal efficiency. Unfortunately, human error cannot be avoided, and key steps in the quality control process can get overlooked, done incorrectly, or flat-out neglected. The repetitive nature of quality control work makes this unavoidable. Humans just can’t be perfect every single time. Fortunately, it is possible to get much closer to perfection through the use of tools for quality control in manufacturing, like software.
The goal of manufacturing software is to automate many of the repeatable tasks in a quality control process and smooth out the rough edges of the human element. Software tools for quality control in manufacturing are especially effective when it comes to maintaining proper schedules for maintenance, which includes ensuring that key machinery is operating as intended, implementing industry-specific standards and specifications for quality, developing sampling plans that will be followed for every single batch, and providing real-time data and feedback that makes it easier to spot when a specific process has gone awry.
There are dozens of tools that operations managers can utilize to track their shop, and all of them go a long way toward improving efficiency and quality. With the right software and data collection tools, there is no limit to the types of charts and statistical analyses—such as flow charts, control charts, check sheets, and cause-and-effect diagrams—that can be performed to keep operations on track and determine areas of weakness or where your processes are deviating from the norm.
Bluestreak’s industry-leading quality control software has all these tools and more in a robust bundle that makes life easier for operations managers in the manufacturing industry. Our MES+QMS software packs a punch and improves operations from day one. Here are essential tools that Bluestreak provides to manufacturers.
1. Bluestreak Schedule: This scheduling tool gives planners and managers the ability to make load planning easier and more dynamic. A schedule is never set in stone on the shop floor, and the scheduling module in Bluestreak makes it easier to react quickly to a rush order or piece of equipment going down.
2. iMaintain: This is a tool designed to make it easier to manage and plan regularly scheduled maintenance for production equipment and other important parts of your factory. It is also a useful preventative maintenance tool because it helps ensure that maintenance does not slip through the cracks, leading to broken equipment and quality issues.
3. Advanced Control/Sampling Plans: With Bluestreak, you can guarantee that specified testing intervals for every tool or part that comes off the line is followed correctly. Take the guesswork out of when samples need to be pulled from each batch and provide proof to the customer that their orders are being followed to the highest standard of quality.
4. Advanced Specifications Manager: This tool allows manufacturers to build their own library of job-specific and industry specifications in one complete and powerful database. It enables companies to stick to specifications for each work order and creates an audit trail to show compliance and commitment to quality.
5. intelliPlan: Bluestreak gives companies the ability to build sophisticated part processes for each new order by using embedded processes to quickly build out a plan for each work order that will comply with appropriate specifications and material processing rules and ensure a higher quality of the finished product.
As is the case with every type of software and data analytics platform, the saying, “garbage in, garbage out,” applies to manufacturing software. Implementing new technology is difficult, as is training new employees or dealing with staff turnover. Bluestreak understands this and offers implementation and success support to all customers.
These tools simplify day-to-day manufacturing operations and improve the overall quality of the finished product being delivered to clients. Modernizing quality control through the use of software tools like Bluestreak is an outstanding way for manufacturers to usher in a new era of growth for their companies.
Bluestreak’s MES + QMS solution helps service-based manufacturers increase production floor productivity and increase their profits. If you’re ready to leave manual, time-consuming service-based manufacturing tasks in the past, drastically reduce your scrap and rework percentage, gain visibility of your production floor processes, and build better relationships with your customers, contact us for a free consultation today!
About Bluestreak™:
Bluestreak™ is a powerful Manufacturing Execution System (MES) and a fully integrated Quality Management System (QMS), designed for the manufacturing environment and service-based manufacturing companies ( metal-treating/powder-coating, plating, heat-treating, forging, and metal-finishing), businesses that receive customers’ parts, perform a process (service) on them, and send those parts back to the customer). Companies need MES software tailored to specific functionality and workflow needs such as industry-specific specifications management, intuitive scheduling control for both staff and machinery maintenance, and the ability to manage work orders and track real-time data. If different work centers on the production floor aren’t “speaking” to each other via the MES, the data loses value and becomes disjointed or lost in disparate silos.
Bluestreak | Bright AM™ is an MES + QMS software solution specifically designed to manage and optimize the unique requirements of Additive Manufacturing’s production of parts and powder inventory usage.