Companies make countless decisions each and every day. Micro decisions affecting short term operations and macro decisions affecting the company’s big picture over the long term. Whether micro or macro, good business decisions are made using factual information. And those decisions are generally based on objective analysis and free of subjective influence.
In this series, we are going to uncover questions which can be used in an assessment of a quality system for terminal crimping.
Objective evidence is a term which applies to a wide range of situations and are a basis for an effective decision. The audit process irregardless of what is being audited use objective evidence.
Objective Evidence defined: “Information based on facts that can be proved through analysis, observation and other such means of research.” Source: BusinessDictionary.com.
Part one will deal with questions surrounding the validation and pre-production process. Part two will cover the production and process monitoring. Here are some questions to consider.
Material Verification.
- Are the right materials picked and introduced into production?
- Surprisingly, the introduction of the wrong materials into the production stream is a cause of defects and rework. Hopefully caught before leaving the facility, a major issue if caught by the customer. Is your system set up to eliminate the possibility of employee error when picking materials for production?
Applicator Set Up.
- Has the applicator been prepared for production?
- Was the applicator inspected after the last production run?
- Are the tooling capable of producing crimps that meet quality specifications?
Applicator Installation.
- Applicator installation is a variable in production set up.
- Is the press set up to the proper shut height?
- Press force and shut variation is a variable that can effect crimp quality. Dynamic Measurement of Press Shut Height and Force provides an accurate method of analysis for press capability.
Crimp Measurements.
- Are you following the recipe?
- The recipe or defined measurements for crimp validation include wire crimp height, crimp width, pull test and visual factors. Pull test alone exposes you to the potential of crimps with high electrical resistance. Wire Crimp Height is the primary method terminal suppliers specify to measure crimp quality.
Remember it is not enough to ask good questions. Acting on the answers to those questions are critical in managing a system of people, processing equipment and process monitoring tools.
Part two will focus on questions to ask during processing.
