The Quality Control Process in Engineering and Manufacturing - Report Example

Manufacture Engineering, Continuous Assessment Group Name: Course: Instructor: Institution: Date of Submission: Inspection and Quality Assurance Procedures Quality control process in engineering and manufacturing involves reviewing the production factors that guarantee the quality of the designs manufactured. Quality control and assurance involves ensuring control, performance and integrity criteria among others. Control is the key process that involves the inspection of the product prior to providing the product in the market. Inspection process is the process of ensuring standardization, quality of workmanship, and uniformity. Inspection involves controlling the cost of manufacturing the product while meeting the specifications and standards of developing the products, ensuring quality control (Gabriel, 2016). Inspection during manufacturing is to ensure the information on the performance of the product is collected using standards that must be employed during the quality control, purchasing and engineering production. The objective of the inspection also guarantees the quality of the product, thus maintaining the standards of the product development. Inspection also helps detect the source of the failure or the weakness regarding the developed project while influencing the designed product (MassDot, 2016). The inspection assist in determining the product quality, rating the quality of the manufactured product, measuring the process capability, securing the design information of the products. The inspection also improves the accuracy of the inspectors among others. Inspection of the product occurs in several stages as provided below. The figure below presents some of the areas of the product that will be inspected since, each area influences the success and performance of the product in the market. Inspection main stage involves inspecting the incoming material including the sources of the material among others. The inspection of materials involves evaluating every single component that helps develop the product. All purchased products, their transportation process, their manufacturing process and other factors must be considered and inspected to ensure the final product is in perfect condition when presented in the market (Gabriel, 2016). The second stage involves evaluating the production process of the material. Inspection process occurs through the process of developing the product. Inspection of the product occurs during the production points that matters. Inspecting the finished products for quality control and other factors is the last stage where the finished products are inspected before marketing. The inspection process involves evaluating the poor quality of the product to ensure it is sold at the right price. The inspection of the product involves evaluating the floor inspection, combined inspection and the centralized inspection. The figure shows that during development, some of these materials are inspected for quality assuarance among others. This inspection is conducted throughout the floor inspection process. Floor inspection process involved evaluating the materials through the production of the product. Floor inspection process helps minimize the material handling during the production process. The advantage of the floor inspection process helps encourage the co-operation of the inspectors. It also involves randomly checking the manufactured products including ensuring production delays are not experienced (Finch, 2006). The dis-advantages of floor inspection occur when the inspection process is biased, the cost of inspection may also be high. The floor inspection is suitable for heavy products mainly. Centralized inspection involves inspecting the materials that guarantee the perfect development of the final product. Centralized inspection is beneficial since it involves ensuring the quality developed is of the right quality, and orderly production flow including lowering the production costs. The dis-advantage of the combined inspection is that it involves numerous handling of materials. The centralized inspection is suitable since it involves inspecting the incoming materials, the finished product inspection, and departmental inspection among others. Combined inspection involves using both the centralized and floor inspection process. Thus, the main objective of the combined inspection process is locating and preventing the defects in the products while ensuring they meet the quality control of the product. It also involves carefully inspecting the strategic point and quality of the products. The inspection may also involve sampling inspection process. The quality assurance procedure involves qualifying the quality of the design development, quality of conformance with specification and quality of performance. For instance, the entire product will be inspected throughout the process, which means every single component of the product is inspected for quality assurance. Quality control process involves establishing the standards while observing the performance activity through choosing the subject control, measuring performance of the product and others. Quality control is attained through inspecting the machines, materials, and men. Quality is also affected through ensuring the quality of the product by ensuring the manufacturing conditions are met and management policies among others. Type and Layout of the Production Facility The layout of the production plant involves evaluating the locations of the activities that occur to support the development of final product. Others include the configurations and dimensions of the production facility. The production plant layout evaluation is conducted to assist handle the design problem which begins through the Greenfield evaluation to the new machine location. The evaluation of the production facility is conducted to evaluate the new products including the changes in product design and demand among others (Finch, 2006). The design process involves some of the activities as follows. The production plant layout evaluation involves ensuring the handling of materials is minimal at lower costs, minimal investments, throughput time, flexibility and usage of the space. It also involves engaging in the restrictions processes that the facility works in. The restrictions include legislation on employees and providing them with the best working conditions in the organization. It includes providing the people with the right equipment’s, while planning for the preferred situation in the future. The layout of the production facility must support the objectives of the facility, ensuring the layout is clearly flexible to support changes in productions. The product layout process above shows the layout of developing the product from the fixing of the raw materials to the finishing of the products. The product process shows how the operations of the product move from one phase to another untill they are fully developed (Finch, 2006). The layout of the production facility is developed to meet the quality and quantity demands of the production (Stevenson, 2005). It is the process that involves the arrangement and space allocation that involves all operating factors in the plant. The layout is also determined by the product been developed including the quality, shape and size of the product. The process also is a determining factor that includes the technology used in the product development. The production volumes are also an important factor that should be evaluated. The figure above presents an analysis of how the process of production in the facility occurs (Finch, 2006). The Potential for Implementing Lean Manufacturing Concepts Lean manufacturing is the process of eliminating waste throughout the manufacturing system. The process of lean manufacturing considers factors such as Muri (overburden), and Mura (workload unevenness) through ensuring the value of the product or service been consumed. Lean considers the factors that add value to the final finished product. Lean management is the process that ensures and guarantees the quality of the product is maximum and highest. Lean manufacturing in the development of the product will ensure the products developed meet the highest quality, which ensures they are highly competitive in the market. More importantly, the lean factors help ensure the manufactures invest in the efficiency of maximizing the production facility floor space and meeting the needs and expectation of the consumers/ market (Abdulmalek & Jayant, 2007). In the development of the product, the waste and workloads will be eliminated to ensure continuous growth while increasing the potential to improve performances of the product. Lean management in the product development process helps improve the quality of the products, productivity, and efficiency in the production (Achanga, et al., 200). In the product development, the areas of improvement will include eliminating waste costs through out the production processes, quality and inspection and assembly of the final products among others. It also will eliminate waste though improving utilization of assets used in the production of the product. Product utilization through lean management ensures that the ales in the organization increase, overhead costs are lowered and the delivery time is not delayed. Consequently, the consumers are satisfied, improving the performance of the product in the market (Finch, 2006). Improvement will also occur since the product will increase the satisfaction and confidence of the customers through improved quality of the final product. Through eliminating workloads in the organization, the employees will be satisfied with their jobs, and increase their productivity. However, some of the factors occur as challenges in implementing lean management. Lean management in the production of the products helps eliminate wastes, which leads a reduction in the costs used in other responsibilities while improving efficiency. For instance, lean factor of Muri eliminates wastes, which includes minimizing the storage time for products received and those outgoing (Abdulmalek & Jayant, 2007). Thus, the issue of supply chain has to be considered significantly. That is; to ensure the supply chain is in accordance with other strategies of the business, the business has to implement a just-in-time strategy for timely delivery and application of the supply chain process. Lean management will also require employee development through training the employees to use the materials and assets available to ensure efficient production of the final product. Technological challenges will also be met since there is an upfront investment in the technology for such systems among others that guarantee efficiency and performance improvement. However, lean management will be beneficial to the development of the product since it will improve quality, visual management of the products development allowing assessment of all stages of productions, which also allows the identification of any abnormalities (Achanga, et al., 200). Efficiency is increased; manpower is reduced through automating some responsibilities, which also lowers the costs in the production of the final product. More importantly, it eliminates the problems in the production process and facilities by forcing one to attack issues for the improved performance of the product in the market. Thus, the individuals are forced to analyze the root cause of a problem and handle it effectively. Sustainability and Costing of the Product The price setting of a product is the most critical since it must consider all the processes involved in the manufacturing of the product to the attainment of the final product. The pricing must meet these costs while ensuring the profit is accounted for. The price must be suitable for the product. Thus, product sustainability is a key factor in determining the cost of the product (Jackson, et al., 2006). Costing of the product consider all the expenses encountered during the development of the product such as the labor, materials, production supplies and other overheads costs. Costing of the product considers every penny used to provide the product in the market. Costing of this product will begin through calculating all the overhead costs experienced in developing the product. That is; overhead refers to all the costs that must be met despite the sales to be made or sales made. This may include the electricity bills, rent, labor, utilities, marketing and others encountered (Smith & Janet, 2000). For instance, one may assume the total overhead costs of developing the spider joints is $1000 dollars. The hourly overhead costs of this product development can be linked to about all the time spent in developing the product. The total spent in developing the product was 45% of the total hours used in all other factors to marketing the product. 20 weeks were used for the development of one batch of the spider joints. The developers of the product have about 4 week off, where they work about 40 hours in every week. Thus, the hourly overhead cost of developing the product will be: 20 weeks * 40 hours * 45% = 360h/ year Hourly overhead costs = $1000 / 360 = 2.77$ Then the costing also considers the hourly wage. The developers intent to earn about $2000 per year. Thus, the hourly wage is attained through: $2000 / 360 = 55.55 dollars per hour Hourly rate of developing the product: $2.77 + $55.55 = $58.32 The total time for developing a single spider joint is 1hours 25 minutes averages. Thus, the product is developed through 1.25 hours * $58.32 = $72.9 The costs of the materials to developing a single spider joint sums to $12 Thee contingency for developing this product fall at about 10%. Thus, the costing of the product will be as follows: $72.9 + $12 * 110% = $93.39 Thus, the costing of a single product is $93.39, which will be used to determine the cost of a whole batch. The costs will also determine the price of the product in the market (Hansen, 2005). Sustainability is also important in product costing since it will help reduce the costs associated with developing the product, which leads to lower costs of developing the product, and lower prices of the products, despite having a higher quality mainly compared to competitor products. References Abdulmalek, F. A. & Jayant, R., 2007. Analyzing the benefits of lean manufacturing and value stream mapping via simulation: A process sector case study. International Journal of production economics, 107(1), pp. 223 - 236. Achanga, P., Esam, S., Rajkumar, R. & Geoff, N., 200. Critical success factors for lean implementation within SMEs. Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management, 17(4), pp. 460 -471. Finch, B. J., 2006. Operations Now: Profitability, Processes, Performance. 2 nd ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill /Irwin. Gabriel, H. L., 2016. Quality Control and Quality Assuarance. Chapter 8, Issue https://plasticpipe.org/pdf/chapter-8_quality_control_quality_assurance.pdf, pp. 1-35. Hansen, D. R., 2005. Management Accounting. Thomson SouthWestern: s.n. Jackson, S., Roby, S. & Greg, J., 2006. Managerial Accounting: A Focus on Decision Making. New York: Thomson South-Western. MassDot, 2016. Quality Control and Quality Assuarance. Bridge Inspection Handbook, Issue Retrieved from: https://www.massdot.state.ma.us/Portals/8/docs/bridgeManual/InspectionHandbook/Chapter5.pdf, pp. 1-12. Smith, R. L. & Janet, K. S., 2000. Entrepreneurial Finance. John Wiley. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Stevenson, W. J., 2005. Operations Management. 8 th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hil/ Irwin. Read More

The figure shows that during development, some of these materials are inspected for quality assuarance among others. This inspection is conducted throughout the floor inspection process. Floor inspection process involved evaluating the materials through the production of the product. Floor inspection process helps minimize the material handling during the production process. The advantage of the floor inspection process helps encourage the co-operation of the inspectors. It also involves randomly checking the manufactured products including ensuring production delays are not experienced (Finch, 2006).

The dis-advantages of floor inspection occur when the inspection process is biased, the cost of inspection may also be high. The floor inspection is suitable for heavy products mainly. Centralized inspection involves inspecting the materials that guarantee the perfect development of the final product. Centralized inspection is beneficial since it involves ensuring the quality developed is of the right quality, and orderly production flow including lowering the production costs. The dis-advantage of the combined inspection is that it involves numerous handling of materials.

The centralized inspection is suitable since it involves inspecting the incoming materials, the finished product inspection, and departmental inspection among others. Combined inspection involves using both the centralized and floor inspection process. Thus, the main objective of the combined inspection process is locating and preventing the defects in the products while ensuring they meet the quality control of the product. It also involves carefully inspecting the strategic point and quality of the products.

The inspection may also involve sampling inspection process. The quality assurance procedure involves qualifying the quality of the design development, quality of conformance with specification and quality of performance. For instance, the entire product will be inspected throughout the process, which means every single component of the product is inspected for quality assurance. Quality control process involves establishing the standards while observing the performance activity through choosing the subject control, measuring performance of the product and others.

Quality control is attained through inspecting the machines, materials, and men. Quality is also affected through ensuring the quality of the product by ensuring the manufacturing conditions are met and management policies among others. Type and Layout of the Production Facility The layout of the production plant involves evaluating the locations of the activities that occur to support the development of final product. Others include the configurations and dimensions of the production facility.

The production plant layout evaluation is conducted to assist handle the design problem which begins through the Greenfield evaluation to the new machine location. The evaluation of the production facility is conducted to evaluate the new products including the changes in product design and demand among others (Finch, 2006). The design process involves some of the activities as follows. The production plant layout evaluation involves ensuring the handling of materials is minimal at lower costs, minimal investments, throughput time, flexibility and usage of the space.

It also involves engaging in the restrictions processes that the facility works in. The restrictions include legislation on employees and providing them with the best working conditions in the organization. It includes providing the people with the right equipment’s, while planning for the preferred situation in the future. The layout of the production facility must support the objectives of the facility, ensuring the layout is clearly flexible to support changes in productions. The product layout process above shows the layout of developing the product from the fixing of the raw materials to the finishing of the products.

The product process shows how the operations of the product move from one phase to another untill they are fully developed (Finch, 2006).

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