Reducing waste
23 July 2012
Asteelflash Group, an international EMS, has reduced customer returns by 20%, and internal scraps and reworks by 50%. These efforts are part of a corporate initiative called the Asteelflash Excellence System that promotes manufacturing excellence.
The Asteelflash Excellence System defines a set of tools and methodologies that standardise the way products are designed and manufactured within the company. Quality is a major component of this initiative and since the introduction in October 2011, Asteelflash has made significant strides along its roadmap toward excellence.
"Our customers continue to expect higher quality products and to remain competitive, we must continually strive to improve our Quality," said Christian Granottier, Group Quality Director for Asteelflash. "We are pleased with our success so far, but these early results are just the beginning."
One way Asteelflash is working to improve Quality is to focus their team members and processes on daily problem solving. As a problem arises, every team member gets involved in developing solutions that they communicate across the company, enabling a shared learning experience. Asteelflash seeks the kind of close-knit collaboration that is conducive to teamwork.
The Group has also defined a set of roadmaps that guide the teams step-by-step along their Quality initiative. Asteelflash's Quality roadmaps cover areas such as supplier quality, problem solving, process control and QRQC (quick response, quality control).
"Quality is something that pervades the entire company. Every employee at Asteelflash feels a responsibility to improve, from management, to engineers, to the shop floor. We are creating a reactive mindset, one where flexibility, quick response and availability to customers become the norm," continued Granottier.
The Group constantly monitors its quality levels through key process indicators, or KPIs. The indicators measure quality as customers see it, quality of their supplier materials, scraps and reworks, and the cost of failures.
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