There are no two ways about it; quality assurance is critical to any metal manufacturer. And while every component fabricator will have quality assurance processes in place, how strictly they adhere to those policies has a big impact on how well they meet the needs of their customers. Here’s a look at quality assurance and having zero defects as your goal.
QUALITY IS JOB NUMBER ONE
As the Quality Manager for
R&M Manufacturing, I’m confident in saying that our quality processes are more robust than what you’ll see with other manufacturers. We use high-quality, top-of-the-line equipment, and our overall inspection processes go above and beyond what’s expected in the industry. To us, quality is always job number one.
There’s so much that goes into developing
a good quality system. It starts off with training. You have to ensure people understand their jobs and that they know the tools. Metal component fabrication requires a certain skill set, and if someone doesn’t have that skill set, quality depends on bringing them up to the level they need to be at.
WORKING TOWARD ZERO DEFECTS
Every company defines their own quality standards, and those standards depend on the needs of their current customers and an understanding of how they want to run their business. For example, we ship to customers on the national and global level, and we have the policies and procedures in place to meet their needs.
Oftentimes, we ship directly into production environments, where our product goes directly to our customer’s factory floor or the end user’s. Our quality assurance processes allow our parts and components to skip third-party inspections and receiving programs. This helps us to work with tighter lead times, too.
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
From beginning to end,
we support our customers. This includes everything from quality documentation, communication, and feasibility. This also involves asking of ourselves,
are we capable of producing this part? Helping our customers decide what they need and/or if what they’re requesting is going to work for them.
In the rare event that a customer gets a part that is not conforming, we immediately react to the situation and get the customer what they need. But we don’t stop there. We perform a root-cause analysis to uncover what went wrong and build out steps to prevent it from happening again.
We welcome new and existing customers to view our facility and see how we handle quality assurance. We have
the processes and the people in place that ensure our manufactured parts and components meet the quality standards they should meet. Because a large part of being a leading parts manufacturer is having quality assurance standards and processes in place.
