Matthew Conville, P.E.
EASA Technical Support Specialist
Well, it is March, and our New Year’s resolutions for your service center should be moving full steam ahead. Some of the typical resolutions we hear are, “We want to be more efficient at getting work out the door,” “We want to improve our bottom line to be more profitable,” and “We really want to provide training for our people.”
These are all great resolutions, but it can be very difficult to execute them. Some of the feedback we receive is, “We use 6S in our service center, but we aren’t any faster,” “We’re organized now and using lean principles, but we aren’t more profitable than before,” and “We want to provide training for our employees, but we don’t know what to train them on to help them in their current role.”
While there is not a one-size-fits-all answer to these resolutions, we can use data in our service center to help us accomplish them.
So, what data are we talking about? Does it require some sort of fancy computer system? The data to be collected is on nonconformities and, subsequently, the rework required to fix the non- conformance. This does not require an elaborate tracking system to be extremely effective.
To accomplish our resolutions, we will define nonconformity and rework, discuss some examples of this in a service center, consider what ISO 9001 says about nonconformity and how it should be dealt with and how to move forward with this knowledge.
What Is Nonconformity?
To use this data to our advantage, we must first understand the definition of nonconformity. ISO 9000:2015 defines a nonconformity as a “non-fulfillment of a requirement;” a requirement is a “need or expectation that is stated, generally implied or obligatory” and rework is “action on a nonconforming product or service to make it conform to the requirements.”
Some instances of nonconformities include when we’ve wound a stator incorrectly with the wrong pitch and it must be rewound again, or we buy bearings from the manufacturer, and they arrive damaged.
So, let us explore a few less-obvious examples of this in a service center.
A shaft needs to be machined for a second time to achieve proper journal fits for the bearing being used. Why is this considered a nonconformity? Since the journal dimensions do not meet the bearing manufacturer’s requirements, the shaft is now considered to be defective and must be fixed for it to function as intended.
Another example would be that we must re-lead a stator winding from 3 leads to 6 leads as it was wound with 3 leads only. Why is this considered a nonconformity? The end user’s expectation or requirement is that the motor be delivered with 6 leads. If we delivered the motor with only 3 leads, we would have a non-fulfillment of that requirement, and they would expect it to be fixed to meet their requirement.
Finally, say the motor has been repaired and reassembled. We are getting ready to outfit the motor with its coupling when we notice the keyway needs to be fixed as it is misshaped and was missed upon initial inspection. Why is this a nonconformity? The keyway in the shaft is defective because it will not allow the shaft key to function as intended, does not meet the manufacturer’s specifications and was not found on initial inspection.
How does ISO 9001:2015 say we should deal with nonconformities? Section 10 of the standard is on improvement. Here is an excerpt from Section 10.2 to give us guidance:
10.2 Nonconformity and corrective action
10.2.1 When a nonconformity occurs, including any arising from complaints, the organization shall:
a.) react to the nonconformity and, as applicable:
1.) take action to control and correct it;
2.) deal with the consequences;
b.) evaluate the need for action to eliminate the cause(s) of the nonconformity, in order that it does not recur or occur elsewhere by:
1.) reviewing and analyzing the nonconformity;
2.) determining the cause of the nonconformity;
3.) determining if similar nonconformities exist, or could potentially occur
c.) implement any action needed;
d.) review the effectiveness of any corrective action taken.
What Does This Mean for Our Service Center?
Very simply, when a nonconformity happens, take a few minutes to talk about what happened and why, determine if action is needed to correct it, how to prevent it, document it and review its effectiveness as necessary. This is typically part of a service center’s Quality Management System.
Isn’t this just a lot of time-consuming paperwork that is going to make things slower? The answer is yes if we are not going to use the information to our advantage to help us achieve our resolutions.
How can this help? Let’s revisit our examples to see what is common among them and how that translates to achieving our resolutions.
In all three examples, each motor had to be reworked to satisfy the requirements of either the customer or the manufacturer and, more importantly, prevent a warranty cost from occurring. If we dig a little deeper, we see that time and resources were also tied up. Most service centers consider labor hours very precious.
Having to use more labor hours to rework a part affects us in three ways. First, it impacts our ability to get that motor out the door more quickly. Second, that labor cannot be used elsewhere to serve another end user’s needs on a motor that needs to be repaired. Lastly, the end user does not want to pay for the labor hours associated with our internal mistakes. This has an impact on our bottom-line profitability. If this rework occurs in a bottleneck area in the service center, our throughput has been reduced. Now, every other motor that must pass through that bottleneck will be later than originally intended.
As we can see, if we focus on capturing the nonconformities and rework in our service centers and put plans in place to prevent them from happening again, we can improve our profitability and turnaround time.
So How Does Training Fit Into This?
First, when we examine the areas in the service center where nonconformities and rework occur, this will shed light on where in the service center training needs to occur.
As we drill down a little deeper, we might see a continued recurrence of a particular nonconformity or rework. We now can provide intentional and specific training to help prevent this from recurring.
If we focus on areas of continued recurrence and/or our bottlenecks, our profitability and throughput will increase. This training could be in the form of an EASA technical article, excerpt from EASA’s seminar manuals or any other resource found in EASA’s Resource Library among other training material available at the service center.
In a recent survey to EASA members regarding training needs, one of the recommendations was to empower our members in planning and measurement when it comes to training. Tracking our nonconformities and rework will help us accomplish just that. When we tally the costs of rework and how it has impacted profitability and turnaround times, the focus on prevention and taking extra time to train employees becomes a “no-brainer.”
Nonconformities and rework will happen at every service center. It is how we respond to them with mitigation, prevention and training that help us continue to improve and serve our end users with excellence. This just might be the way to get all three things in that adage of fast, cheap and quality, and it will help us achieve our New Year’s resolutions for our service center.
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