He Quality Gate, a successful Total Quality methodology
The Plant of Non-Woven Fabrics Barcelona 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 Nonwovens Plant (Barcelona) which manufactures technically complex products for heterogeneous sectors such as textiles, automotive, energy, electrical and submarine cabling or medical, now sets itself the challenge of strengthening 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 ('Quality Gate'), to guarantee the highest quality at every step of the production process, especially for both direct and indirect plant operators.
He Quality Gate It provided the industrial plant with a set of permanent solutions, such as an area of management visual composed of a cascade of quality indicators, generated by a program of reporting It also inherits a physical space for Root Cause Analysis called ICE ('Involve, Contain, and Eradicate') where each operator's improvement ideas are tracked. Finally, it includes a counter of real defects so that the defects can be seen and touched. This space was called Quality Corner.
In this space ('The Quality Corner') the key to the project is activated: the 'Quality Guarantees'. Now, it is here that the operators and their superiors assign work orders with their respective attached 'Quality Guarantees'. ‘From now on, each order has a checklist specific control that includes the necessary controls at each step of the process Converting and of Packaging”,” 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, after the implementation of Quality Gate, These changes were not long in coming. Thus, after a year, it was observed that the section's complaints had been divided by almost three, despite the increase in orders.. As is well known, claims represent the visible tip of the iceberg of quality costs, which allows us to perceive a similar reduction on the substantial collateral costs such as delays, excess stock, rework, lost sales among many others.
This success story has been most notably recognized by an international aerospace battery company, which awarded The Non-Woven Fabric Plant Spain wins the 'Excellence Award 2014' in recognition of its performance throughout the year.
This experience suggests that even business giants like The Non-Woven Fabric Plant They have areas for improvement if they want to keep their customers satisfied and gain new market share. To achieve this, it's essential that the right team takes charge to identify errors and implement successful work methodologies that reduce the margin of error, provided they can secure the commitment of the operators who hold the keys to success.
Javier Montes de Oca Rodríguez
