For many manufacturing organizations, the cost of quality management is viewed as an expense, necessary for maintaining compliance but not operationally beneficial.
That’s because status-quo and poor quality management programs are typically reactive. Data are collected and stored in spreadsheets or on paper forms, and quality issues often aren’t discovered until they create customer or shipment problems. Putting out quality “fires” leaves the quality team little opportunity to take advantage of the profit potential inside that quality data.
Quality is much more than a checkbox or a line-item expense. When you build quality manufacturing into your organizational culture, you turn quality data into a rich, strategic information source that helps you reduce costs, improve productivity, and expand market share to secure the future of your company.
The cost of quality isn’t measured in the price of data collection but in the greater value that quality data brings your manufacturing organization.
Manufacturing organizations of every size—from global enterprises to midsize regional producers—and across every industry often feel they have to choose between high quality and operational efficiency.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Poor quality is at the heart of the costliest issues in manufacturing. Eliminate your quality issues, and you’re already on your way to reducing costs and improving productivity. The quality data you’re already collecting hold the keys to addressing core cost issues head on.
Reduce the cost of waste, scrap, and rework
Relying on a final inspection for quality control can be a case of too little, too late. If a process falls out of spec anywhere along the production line, that finished product heads straight for the waste bin, racking up untold costs in rework and materials. InfinityQS quality control solutions help you monitor product and process quality in real time at every critical operation so that plant floor operators can adjust and eliminate variations before they cause costly waste.
In addition, InfinityQS solutions centralize and standardize collected quality data to provide meaningful operational insights. When you roll up that aggregated data, you can get a big-picture view of all your operations—and apply waste-reducing best practices consistently across products, processes, and plants.
Turn customer complaints into customer loyalty
When you are able to identify and correct product and process variations early in production, sub-par products never reach your final inspection and customers. If customers do have a question or an issue, InfinityQS solutions provide instant access to reporting that helps you respond to customer queries quickly. That responsiveness can help you build a stronger bond, more repeat orders, and better customer relationships. The result? Happy customers who value your high quality, reliable products.
Build brand equity and gain a competitive advantage
A hallmark of a trustworthy brand is consistency across all products. InfinityQS solutions provide targeted, extensive data collection and quality control analysis capabilities, automated alerts, and aggregated access to historical data. Together, these capabilities enable unparalleled product consistency to meet your customers’ expectations and elevate your brand as the premium producer in your industry.
Prevent costly recalls
Product recalls cost your manufacturing organization more than lost time and materials. The potential loss of customer confidence and brand reputation can be devastating. InfinityQS quality solutions enable you to reduce or eliminate defects and automate compliance, policy, and procedure enforcement. Proactive quality assurance reduces the need for reactive responses to recalls.
Simplify and streamline audits
Audits that take days or even weeks rack up costs in time, effort, and resources. InfinityQS quality solutions eliminate those costs by enabling you to respond to audit requests in minutes. When quality data are centralized and standardized, it’s easy to pull together quality, preventative control, and other data across one shift or multiple shifts on multiple days. Then, you can easily create customized reports in response to specific auditor or customer queries.
Reduce the cost of regulatory compliance
Manufacturers today deal with myriad, complex international regulations and compliance requirements. Ensuring those requirements are met can be complex and time-consuming. InfinityQS solutions simplify and streamline regulatory compliance with automated alerts to ensure compliance checks are performed and automated notifications that provide visibility into potential or actual failures.
Make the most of investments in systems and equipment
No manufacturer is able to abandon their investment in existing equipment, devices, systems, and infrastructure. Fortunately, InfinityQS quality management software solutions integrate with a wide range of legacy systems, supporting communications through their native protocols (e.g., ODBC connection, XML, TXT, and others). Familiar, user-friendly interfaces and operational components add to the flexibility and scalability of the InfinityQS platform and enable users to take advantage of self-service, on-demand reporting. The result is better use of your quality data—without costly demands on your IT team.