Quality Magazine - April 2009 - (Page 45) Marlo Davis, blade manufacturing floater at ASR’s Knoxville facility, inspects heat-treat quality of steel strips. Source: Quality Magazine mitment to quality and willingness to support its plants with capital and engineering influence. The Knoxville facility has its own engineering department on hand, and in recent years, the plant has invested heavily in gaging and inline inspection equipment, including vision systems and sensors. Another investment was made in 2008 to implement Qualtrax software at the Knoxville plant—a move that has enabled the facility to significantly reduce waste and improve processes, including training, workflows and communications. “I think what [the software implementation] has done for us at this stage is make everything more available. [The information] was there, but you had to know where to look for it before,” Bailey says. The plant continues to move workflows and documentation over to the software program. “Before, we would have a 5-pound laminated book [of process documents]. Now we don’t have to worry about loss of a book or one book not getting updated,” she says. Ultimately, ASR plans to have everything computer-based. “That’s our goal for this year; the operator will have everything they need on screen, so we’re really excited about that,” Bailey says. In addition, the implementation of the software has impacted processes in such a positive way already that corporate management plans to implement the software at all ASR locations. Eventually all ISO and work instruction documents will be available across all facilities. TRAINING The Qualtrax software implementation has allowed the plant to move its large training manuals and work instructions to an electronic format—an effort that will help improve ASR FACT The Knoxville, TN, facility has 60 yellow belts, six green belts and seven black belts on staff. All of Personna American Safety Razor’s employees from other facilities come to the Knoxville plant for continuous training. Quality Quick Clicks 420 at qualitymag.com Visit us at QMC, Booth 33 www.qualitymag.com April 2009 | QUALITY 45 http://www.microvu.com http://www.qualitymag.com http://www.qualitymag.com
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