1. Clarifying the QC standard

Depending on the product and your requirements, the “QC standard” might be a specifications sheet, a set of approved samples, and/or a set of boundary samples.

The objective is avoiding arguments when production has started and issues are found.

An important objective is also to indicate what checkpoints and measurement points are ‘critical-to-quality’. It helps make the right decisions on what the inspectors should spend most of their time checking.

The most basic document you need is a product checklist. For a simple product, we can prepare this for 99 USD. Other types of work are billed based on the number of hours needed.

2. Setting up a QA plan

If you have regular productions handled by a supplier, working on a QA plan will help you:

• Identify what components come with the highest risks
• Take into account custom parts, surface treatments and similar processing steps, and other sources of risks
• Map the suppliers associated with the above risks, if you have visibility
• Identify some of the worst failure modes that may come with your product
• Suggest a plan for mitigating those risks

Note, not all this work should be done by our company. If your supplier is cooperative, we can help them set up a self-inspection plan in good conditions.

3. Setting up checking gauges/fixtures to speed up the QC work

Using a caliper and a micrometer to check whether the dimensions are within specifications may be extremely time consuming. If that’s the case on your product, there is probably a way to set a gauge or a fixture and make dimensional checks up to 50 times faster!

This is very common for bike frames, for example. We can’t show examples of our work for our clients, but here is an example of a checking fixture we found on the web:

(This is also very useful for the manufacturer’s self-inspections.)

4. Confirming the measurement system of a manufacturer

If there is a doubt on the ability of your manufacturer’s ability to discriminate between good and bad product, we can look into the following points:

• Do they use the right equipment and do they follow the right method?
• Is their testing/measuring equipment within calibration? Does it have the right precision?
• Have they conducted a gauge repeatability & reproducibility (GR&R) to confirm accuracy, or should we set up such a study for them?

Examples of GR&R on variable data:

• Do inspectors find the same measurements when they check the same parts several times?
• Do all 5 inspectors working at the factory find the same measurements?

Example of GR&R on attribute data:

• Do all inspectors make the same pass/fail call when they evaluate a color difference?