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My position within the company is a Quality Co-ordinate where my role is to ensure all products are made to the highest possible standard, consistently, in order to meet customer requirements and distraction. I work within the Quality department, report directly to the Quality Team Leader who reports to the Quality Manager, I have Quality Control operators across all shifts and sites who report directly to me and 1 Quality Technician per shift who also reports directly to me. Recently our sales teams regained a vital contract which unfortunately had been lost due to numerous issues. M basing my assignment on the planning and procedures have had to put in place to guarantee to the customer they will receive the best possible quality product every time. Know how to plan in the workplace: To achieve this goal first needed to identify the organizational targets relevant to the team, set up a meeting with myself, my team leader, my SQ operators and my SQ technician so that we could create our targets relevant for what we want and also so my team know exactly what has to be achieved. These are the organizational targets we needed to achieve.
We came up with a double inspection quality audit procedure for the customer, this would entail the customers order being inspected by a SQ operator as per normal reoccurred then if every item from the order was passed they would then be inspected by a second SQ operator, again if they passed a second inspection Myself or another Quality Co-ordinate would inspect the items to assure they were up to the desired standard set by the customer and by ourselves and then only a Quality Co-ordinate would pass the items and sign them off as satisfactory and ready for delivery.
This way we could ensure only the best possible quality standard reached the customer every time. The pass and fail rate for each delivery is always recorded and calculated, we were currently inning on an 87% RAFT fright first time) we needed the RET to be at least 97% for this customer every delivery before we were sure the double inspection was no longer needed. We also needed to make sure the maintenance of the machines was in order and every machine in the process was running to the required specifications so we knew that the product was being made to the best possible standard.
We needed production to work with us on this too and to assure that every production operator was capable in his own position and he/she had been passed off in their role and that they were working to he correct quality standard. We used the SMART acronym as the framework to set our effective goals. SMART standing for: Specific: Are our objectives clear and precise and does the team know exactly what has to be achieved? Measurable: Our team needs to think about quality, cost, time and quantity. Agreed/Achievable: Everyone needs to agree when undertaking the work, does the whole team see it as an achievable task.
Realistic: Does the team think the target is deliverable? Timed: The team needs to have clear timescales for when the objective has been set. So our specific objective was to get above 97% RAFT on every delivery, we needed to maintain the quality but on the same time keep on top of the cost and time for our task and make sure the quantity is still achievable, everyone needs to agree on the tasks we are setting and agree that the task is achievable and deliverable, we have set our time scale at 1 month to reach 97% RET and then 3 months to contain and continue 97% RAFT. We created an action plan to help us achieve this, (see appendix 1).
Each Step by step of the process will be monitored by myself, each process of reduction uses ACT (critical to quality) check sheets (see appendix 2) this is in place so that each operator can make sure that the product when it reaches each position is 100% k and will not continue onto the next step of production unless otherwise, I will monitor these to assure each operator is following the ACT sheets correctly, I will also test all my SQ operators to assure they are up to the required standard in order to carry out their role and monitor them when they are inspecting the Windows/Doors, I will also cake sure the maintenance of the machines is being carried out will delegate this to my SQ techs and entrust them with this task. Know how to allocate work to team members: We need to make sure we can allocate work to the team members correctly to ensure that the tasks can be completed and in the correct timescales that we have.
The resources required are each production operator is to follow the correct ACT procedure so I know step by step as the product is being made it is correct at each stage of production, will delegate this to the reduction senior foreman, although not in our team as I stated we need production to work alongside us, the senior foreman will monitor the ACT sheets and advise me that the correct procedures are being followed, from this I will know that by the time a door/window has reached quality control it is made to the highest standard possible, if activations on ACT have been hit along the way can make sure that maintenance can fix any machinery issues that is affecting the product. I need to delegate work to my team the most effective way possible. If we are having any maintenance issues I will delegate these to my SQ tech, he will be in charge of this by making sure all machinery is working to standard by working closely with our maintenance department, Quality control will be delegated to my SQ operators as per normal procedure, and the double inspection co-ordinate final check will delegate this to myself, I will be entrusted on giving the final examination and the pass or fail of each product.
I decided to call a meeting regarding the delegation of each tasks with my team and also with production senior foreman, I wanted o ensure that all my team are happy with what tasks they have been delegated and if they have any queries or suggestions on ways to improve or ideas on better ways to implement these structures they can bring them up in this meeting. My Quality Team Leader will assess each activity to assure work is being completed on each position, we will have daily action team meetings where the team will each show the progress of activity, we will also need accurate hand over briefs from each shift so we know exactly the current state of play from each shift.
Myself and my team leader will take turns in veering all shifts, days, nights and weekends so we show support for each shift and inclusion, as we are all a team and need to work together to complete Our given task. We will hold one to one talks with our individual team members to gain accurate feedback on each required target and so we are able to guide them in the right direction. We will hold daily meetings with our SQ Techs so we know day by day the current state of machinery and make sure we are keeping on top of any maintenance issues that could arise. Understand how to improve the performance of a team in delivering to plan: Variance can often occur whilst tying to reach and achieve any goal or objective, one of the biggest issues we came up against was the variety of different acceptable quality standards across the three shift patterns.
Even though our operators and SQ were all trained to the same standard and were taught the same programmer, whilst analyzing our data from RAFT pass rates across the three shifts it was clearer had different levels and understanding of quality standards. It is hard to differentiate from each individual, for example someone’s idea of a poor bevel or groove could be another person’s acceptable bevel or groove, we were finding the quality was slightly less coming from the night and weekend shifts to what is was on the day shift. We called a meeting to discuss how we could overcome this variance and bring every shift up to the same quality standard, inviting feedback from the team we first had a brain storming session to try and come up with ideas.
We also used a root cause analysis plan to try and understand fully why this problem was occurring. We decided to hold a training day for each shift where we would take a group at a time and teach them the acceptable quality standard ND in order to pass the training day they would have to sit a short written test and also produce what they thought was a quality standard for whatever position they currently worked at, this was done across the entire three shifts. We also came up with the idea of Quality sample boards, these were simply a square PVC board with three cut samples, an unacceptable standard, an acceptable standard and a good standard these would be done for both white and foil profile and also beveled and feature profile.
They would be placed on each position on the line and would be there for basically reference or the operators so each door/window that came to their position they could check the boards to make sure it was at least an acceptable standard but working towards a good standard. This worked very well and we slowly started to see the three shifts quality standard level out. Conclusion: Through the careful planning and allocating of each task we set before us, we were able to reach our goal of 97% RAFT every delivery, the quality standard across all shifts was maintained and we were able to continue to make our product of excellence for each and every customer.