Assembly Planbook - April 2008 - (Page 33) tradition. How machines are built is carefully specified in Toyota’s standards.” According to Smalley, Toyota has volumes of these technical standards for processes such as casting, forging, machining, stamping, welding, painting, injection molding and assembly. “Not too many people get to see those unless you can read Japanese or work in the area issuing specifications to the machine builders,” Smalley points out. “This part of TPS is frankly just not understood by anyone writing about Toyota today. I call it the mystery pillar of TPS. “I like to remind people that jidoka is a concept and not really a tool,” adds Smalley. “It has many ways of being applied, but it is always specific to the process in question.” In addition to jidoka, manufacturing engineers can turn to other tools to help reduce or eliminate quality problems, such as design failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA), process FMEA, modeling, design of experiment, quality control plans and plan-do-check-act (PDCA) lists. “The problem is not one of tools, but one of execution and capability,” argues Smalley. “For example, adding another tool in the bag will not help the average golfer. Their average score will not change. The same is true in manufacturing. Improvement only occurs when the root cause of the problem is discovered and fixed through hard work.” One of the best ways to visualize the process is with quality loops. They have four sections: Workstation, zone, plant/process and customer. Communication flows from one loop into the other. “Quality loops protect the customer and offer feedback for improvement,” says Flinchbaugh. “All loops of your quality system must link and align to other loops. This includes feedback and feedforward of problems. “If, at the zone level, I start seeing a trend or uptick in a particular problem, I need to both feed forward and feedback,” explains Flinchbaugh. “Feedback is to the workstation, letting them know that they see the problem and that the operator needs to work on that problem at the workstation level. “Feedforward is sending that same information downstream either to another zone or to the plant,” adds Flinchbaugh. “If I have an increase in problems within the zone, that makes my filter less capable of catching everything. So, you communicate that to other filters (the next zone or plant) so that they can increase their filtering, as it’s more likely during that period of time that something will slip through.” A Learn more about quality in assembly with a click! www.assemblymag.com ASSEMBLY TECHNOLOGIES Lower Cost Operations Decreased • Energy Usage • Product Damage • Work Hazards Right Angle Nut Runners Up to 40 N•m Dependable Performance • Consistent Repeatability • High Endurance 2-Piece Motors Up to 12 N•m Advanced Technologies • Battery Management Systems • Variable Torque Impacts Pistol Grip Screwdrivers User Friendly • LED Lamps • Easily Serviced • Ergonomic Design Cordless Solutions for Manufacturing Makita USA, Inc. 14930 Northam St., La Mirada, CA 90638 Up to 200 N•m Impact Tools (800) 4-MAKITA makitaassemblytools.com www.assemblymag.com April 2008 / ASSE M B LY 33 http://www.assemblymag.com http://makitaassemblytools.com http://makitaassemblytools.com http://www.assemblymag.com
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