Quality Gate, a successful Total Quality methodology
The Barcelona Non-Woven Fabric Plant significantly improves its quality level
When you think of an industrial giant that employs nearly 3,000 people and operates in some 13 countries around the world, you don't usually consider that the final product might have some kind of flaw that prevents it from achieving excellence. Consequently, you also don't usually think about the efforts required to achieve total quality.
The Parets del Vallès (Barcelona) Non-Woven Fabric Plant, which manufactures technically complex products for heterogeneous sectors such as textiles, automotive, energy, electrical and submarine cabling, and medical, now aims to strengthen its position in a sector as demanding as aerospace.
For this reason, Tarral, with an internal team, has taken on the laborious task of significantly reducing this level of imperfections in record time, applying systematic work organization and quality management procedures, which have already brought it to fruition in various industrial sectors.
Marc Tarral applied a fusion of 4 methodologies appropriately adapted to the project, which he has called Quality Gate, to guarantee the highest quality at each step of the production process, especially for the direct and indirect operators of the plant.
The Quality Gate provided the industrial plant with a set of permanent solutions, such as a visual management area comprised of a cascade of quality indicators generated by a proprietary reporting program. It also inherited a physical space for Root Cause Analysis called ICE ('Involve, Contain, and Eradicate') where each operator's improvement ideas were tracked. Finally, it included a display of actual defects, allowing workers to see and touch them. This space was called the Quality Corner.
In this space ('The Quality Corner') the key to the project is activated: 'Quality Guarantees'. Now, it is here that operators and their supervisors assign work orders with their respective attached 'Quality Guarantees'. "From now on, each order has a specific control checklist that includes the necessary controls at each step of the Converting and Packaging process," the engineer explains.
“This visually impactful tool made it possible to communicate quality objectives, report on ongoing activities, analyze each complaint, and communicate the results achieved step by step,” Tarral explains. “Additionally, our 'Quality Assurance' software program ensures rigorous compliance with self-checks at all times by every employee and for every product line. It's a comprehensive solution,‘ he added.
The results in terms of customer satisfaction following the implementation of Quality Gate were quick to appear. After just one year, complaints in the department had been reduced by almost two-thirds, despite an increase in orders. As is well known, complaints represent the tip of the iceberg of quality costs, which allows us to see a similar reduction in the substantial collateral costs such as delays, excess stock, rework, lost sales, and many others.
This success story has been most notably recognized by an international aerospace battery company, which awarded La Planta de Telas sin Tejer España the 'Excellence Award 2014' in recognition of its year-round performance.
This experience suggests that even corporate giants like the Nonwoven Fabric Plant have areas for improvement if they want to keep their customers satisfied and gain new market share. To achieve this, it is essential that the right team takes charge to identify errors and implement successful work methodologies that reduce the margin of error, provided that the commitment of the operators, who hold the keys to success, is secured.
Javier Montes de Oca Rodríguez
Instalin Consult to accompany you in the transformation process of your company and start obtaining measurable results.
