When it comes to manufacturing, improving quality control is essential for success. Being proactive in improving your manufacturing quality control is a good way to care not only for your customers, but for your employees as well. Whether you think you’ve got it down or you know you have a long way to go, you can never really stop improving. And with all the developing technology, your team has access to plenty of options for improving quality control in manufacturing. Improvements don’t always mean massive overhauls, either. Sometimes minor tweaks to your processes will result in distinct quality improvements while still maintaining lean manufacturing.

Let’s take a look at five easy tweaks that can take your manufacturing quality control to the next level.

1. Define Your Manufacturing Quality Standards

How do you define quality at your facility? The answer to this question will help you establish and implement control methods on the floor. It’s important to identify how many defects you are willing to allow and which steps in the process you want to optimize oversight. Knowing these answers will enable you to target your goals, which will reduce costs and time during implementation.

Additionally, you'll want to determine which steps in the process you want to improve. Many lean manufacturing plants opt for end-product evaluations. But you may want to consider improving efficiency in many areas.

2. Be Sure to Train Employees

Ensuring quality throughout your process requires specific training for all employees, not just the quality control officers. This helps employees watch for signs of abnormalities. Cross-trained employees can look at the entire process and help develop ideas for increasing efficiency and quality control. They'll also feel more empowered and valuable to your business, which may improve their work and reduce errors.

Quality control can suffer during times of change. But with trained employees, your shop can have more eyes on the floor to spot problems before the issues turn into faulty products.

3. Use Technology to Aid the Process

Technology can make your shop more efficient and better at quality control. The hallmark of quality control is data gathering, and here are plenty of options for that in manufacturing. You may choose to install real-time sensors to track products. These sensors connect to software that can alert you as soon as it detects an abnormality, enabling you to stop the product before it progresses through the line or gets shipped.

Automating the process by integrating the Internet of Things (IoT) into your facility lets the process learn when quality control problems arise and fix them without a need for human intervention. Though an expensive process to implement, using technology to improve employee work efficiency and quality is worth it.

4. Upgrade Equipment As Needed

Upgrading production equipment to enhance manufacturing quality does not necessarily mean purchasing the newest computer-enhanced equipment. Improving quality may be as simple as replacing outdated equipment that constantly breaks or produces defective products.

Improving your shop's equipment can also increase your efficiency and on-time deliveries. More efficient equipment can help you avoid late deliveries, which detracts from your company's overall reputation for quality.

5. Build a Response Plan

In addition to knowing how to spot quality errors, you'll need to devise a response plan, including possibly adding a quality control officer. Having a rework specialist can make the task of fixing quality errors less daunting.

Even if the quality of your products suffered from defects in your incoming inventory, a quality correction officer can fix the problem and conduct all necessary inspections and AQL audits. For this role, select an employee who will remedy the problems while finding the cause. Fixing the original cause can improve quality over time.

Make Changes Now With Help from PositiveVision

Quality control on your shop floor should not be an afterthought. The caliber of your products reflects on your brand and can make or break your reputation. Don't delay in making changes to your shop floor for enhancing your products' quality.

Looking for help in streamlining those inefficient processes? PositiveVision is dedicated to improving the performance of businesses as a long-term partner, providing the resources and expertise needed for growth. Contact our experts today and find out how easy it can be to enhance your manufacturing quality control.