Assured Quality - Our Approach

Eliminating

There are two key reasons that simplifying products and processes is an essential part of mistake-proofing:

There is a strong link between the complexity of any task and the frequency of errors.

The complexity of every product and process can be reduced, often dramatically.

Simplification will generally eliminate roughly half of the mistake-opportunities, while reducing product development time and improving production efficiency. These changes can often be achieved while improving product performance.

The figure to the left demonstrates the link between defects per unit and the complexity. Similar results over a wide range of product complexity have been obtained at other companies. Complexity is a function of the estimated total assembly time (TAT) minus a constant (t0) times the Total Number of Operations (TOP).

Although the slope of the best fit line is virtually identical for these two companies, the different relative position of the data reflects the relative quality control performance.

We use a technique similar to Design for Assembly methods to identify the opportunities for simplifying products, and to evaluate the effectiveness of alternatives. A few examples of the results that we have achieved using this method are illustrated below.

This original part was machined from rigid foam. The assembly installs on the inner surface of a cone and was made in three pieces so that it could be inserted past a rib. The fixture built to hold the segments in place during bonding cost over $20,000

The new design was cast as a single piece at one tenth the cost. Because the part is flexible, it fits past the rib without having to be made in separate parts. The bonding fixture for this design cost $200. Assembly time was also cut in half with the new design.