It is no secret that employees are right at the heart of any business, so it is important that they remain engaged so that they can continue to provide a high quality of work. Whether your employee is completely new or has been in the business for decades, is an apprentice or at an executive level, it’s important that everyone feels like they are making a contribution to the organisation’s objectives. This can be done by having a good quality management system that aligns throughout the entire business.

The benefits of having employees engaged in their work can be obvious, but it’s how we get them to be engaged that can be the issue. Here are a few examples of how, by utilising an excellent management system, you can work towards a more focused and dedicated workforce.

Goal Setting

All businesses should have goals and various types of them. From the top-level overall business goals right down to goals of the next marketing campaign, having something to aim for and towards is important. After you have clearly identified your business goals, these should be communicated to all employees in the business so that collectively, everyone is aiming for the same thing. By doing this, everyone can begin to understand the larger pictures of the company and will identify how their job can help contribute to those goals.

Continuous Learning

The continual development of all members of staff is crucial for if you want to better the team that you have and make them want to stay as your employees. Investing in the right people can pay dividends in the longer term. By first assessing the capabilities of your employees, you can work with them to identify gaps in their knowledge of which you can then train. By doing so, you are essentially investing in your employees which may create more engagement and also result in a better service delivered by them. By using training records as per your management system, you can track progress across the business and see what the next stages are.

Communication

As with most areas of business, communication is key. It’s important that you keep communication open with all members of your team and converse regularly. Whether this is to clarify on work that is being done or to see how an individual is getting on with a specific task, communication shows interest. Whether this communication is done via email or in person is completely dependents on the size and logistics of your business.

Appraisals

By having regular appraisals and/or reviews with employees ensures that they are heading in the right direction in terms of their work and gives you the opportunity to set any personal goals. In these appraisals, there can be discussions on workload, work difficulty and any challenges they feel they face. All of which can be used to better their experience and in turn, their engagement at work. This can also assist with employee motivation as it gives them the opportunity to discuss positive and negative feedback which can be used to better their role and bring confidence.

Rewarding & Sharing Success

Rewarding good performance in work is one of the easiest ways to engage employees as it gives them the confidence that they are doing their work well and are making an impression. Whether you set up a reward scheme to give back to your employees or you do so verbally every now and then can motivate others to work harder also. This helps to encourage both good behaviour and positive work engagement.

How will you implement your quality management system to help engage your employees? Find out how we can help with management system consultancy.

Companies within the Aerospace industry have long since recognised that although they compete to gain market share, they also share common challenges. In the past they have created differing techniques and methods to try and achieve the same results. To address this, the aviation, space, and defence industry established the International Aerospace Quality Group (IAQG) for the purpose of achieving significant improvements in quality, delivery, safety, and reductions in cost, throughout the value stream. This organisation includes representation from companies in the Americas, Asia/Pacific, and Europe. One of the more tangible results of the group’s activities is the release of a number of industry recognised standards.

AS9102 is the Aerospace standard which seeks to standardise First Article Inspection (FAI) process requirements to the greatest extent possible and can be used at all levels of the supply chain by organisations around the world to provide a consistent process and documentation requirements for verification of aviation, space, and defence products.

This standard was revised in October 2014. When reading the above, the phrase “standardise FAI process requirements to the greatest extent possible” strikes fear into the hearts of the Aerospace supply chain. In reality, there has not been a lot of agreement on what is required in support of a FAI report (FAIR), hence why many organisations add further requirements to those listed within the standard.

With the introduction of AS9145, the Aerospace sector standard for APQP/PPAP, these additional requirements are now being standardised within the 11 PPAP elements.

The trend is now starting for organisations to go back to basics and define their FAIR process around the requirements of AS9102, and seek to gain supporting information from the PPAP file. There is an increasing trend to drive improved, increased accountability for FAIR submission quality towards their supply base and to incorporating any additional requirements within the PPAP file.

Industry Forum are pleased to announce the availability of a number of training courses in support of the techniques and methods required within AS9145 APQ/PPAP, which support FAIR and also provides the training foundations on the requirements for AS9102:

• AS9145 APQP and PPAP Essentials (2 day)
• AS9145 APQP and PPAP Practitioner (5 day)

There was a time in the not-too-distant past when a company could create a notable product and reap the benefits of that product for many years. However, today’s market is far more competitive than it used to be and companies now face the prospect of market saturation for single product designs. This can cause revenues and profits to decline and limit the growth potential of a business. Aspirational growth targets are fundamental to future business strategy and a large part of achieving this growth will involve the introduction of new opportunities and new products into the business.

A desire of every growing organisation is to achieve product launch excellence while bringing new products to the market. In doing so building on stable foundations is critical to success.

 

A well-defined product and technology roadmap element will help to align an organisation’s development efforts and efficiently manage product lifecycles while meeting customer needs. This element will play a key role in linking NPI to business strategy, including a definition of what new products or technology will contribute towards business growth targets.

An analysis of your product portfolio and costing model will help to bring to the surface profitable solutions that already exist in an organisation. Product evolution of these focussed Product Market Groups will work as a good input for business development and help to align new opportunities with existing commercial strengths in the business.

NPI projects are often not given sufficient priority in the business to have specific project management resources allocated to them. It often falls to a single function to run new product launches in amongst their other responsibilities, with limited cross-functional support. This can result in a late launch into manufacturing with incomplete information and a stressful push through the final production stages in an attempt to deliver on time to the customer. Resources within an organisation should be channelled through an effective Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) process. S&OP link with NPI will help to manage resource and capacity balance while introducing new products in the business.

In an effort to improve timelines and effectiveness of a product launch, a number of organisations are experimenting with different best practices in their NPI processes. A big question is what should they do first? A good starting point is to do some internal analysis and identify strengths and weaknesses. Earlier this year Industry Forum launched a free NPI self-assessment tool to help organisations start their NPI improvement journey. If you have not already done so here is your chance to complete the free NPI self-assessment.

Complete the NPI self-assessment.

Manufacturing companies have a range of strategies they can choose from in order to compete in their marketplaces – from Lowest Cost Provider, to Niche Service Provider and Product Differentiation, each brings its own challenges. However, for individual manufacturers, competitiveness is more likely to be connected to their local operating environment and the challenges this brings.

Assessing a company’s competitiveness allows the business to understand what is important to them, and what they should focus on at each point of their growth journey. Understanding their performance and capability enables manufacturers of all shapes and sizes to grow in an appropriate way. Measuring and improving a company’s competitive performance is at the core of the NMCL framework.

The NMCL assessment measures a company’s performance against 6 criteria:

• Quality
• Cost
• Delivery
• Flexibility
• Product & Technology
• Customer experience

The company may choose to compete on one or more of these themes. The NMCL assessment will reflect each company’s view of itself (Company Competitiveness pre-review), and compare that with the view of the customer (Customer Competitiveness view) and the outputs of the NMCL assessor-led Company Capability Assessment. The result is a 360 degree view of the company’s position within its business environment, and crucially, this generates a strategic plan and business case to improve its competitiveness over a 2-4 year period.

The assessment model covers 4 company capability areas:

1. Competitive Strategy & Management Systems
2. New Product Introduction & Lifecycle Management
3. Manufacturing Operations
4. Supply Chain Management

Delving deeper into Manufacturing Operations – “the use of labour, machines, tools, processing, or formulation to add value to material and produce a good for use or sale”, it encompasses:

• The layout of people, material and equipment
• The evaluation and development of the capabilities of people and equipment
• Asset and workforce utilisation planning and management

The Manufacturing Operations section of the NMCL Assessment has the following subsections:

• Plant & Equipment
• Operational Processes
• Working Environment
• Quality Management
• People Capabilities & Organisational Structure
• Energy, resource and material disposition

The purpose is to identify areas of current performance that are a priority for improvement – either by mitigating ‘order losing’ performance, or by generating competitive advantage by shifting toward ‘order winning’ performance. For example, by implementing robust Problem Solving Techniques in order to meet customer expectations on delivered quality and eliminating repeat concerns, or by re-designing the information and material flows to provide faster response to customer demand through Mapping and Improving the Value Stream.

A full list of the types of Manufacturing Operations Work Package support available through NMCL is listed below:

Manufacturing Operations	Plant & Equipment	TPM Principles and Approach
		Loss Analysis & Improvement
		Training and Education Pillar Principles
		Operator Level Maintenance Principles
		Planned Maintenance Principles
		New Equipment Management Pillar Principles
	Lean Operational Processes & Working Environment	Identifying the Improvement Activities Required
		5S Workplace Organisation
		Managing Standard Work Across the Business
		7 Wastes
		Visual Management
		Mapping and Improving the Value Stream
		Quick Changeover – SMED
	Quality Management	Principles of Manufacturing Quality Management
		Measuring and Managing the Cost of Quality
		Problem Solving Techniques
		Documented Problem Solving Process
		Understanding High Level Processes (SIPOC)
		Error Prevention Systems (Poka Yoke)
		Six Sigma Variation Reduction Toolset and Managing Variation
	Measurement	Managing Measurement Systems and Calibration
		Measurement First Principles
		Metrology Skills
		Measurement Process and Standardisation
		Good Practice in Measurement Techniques
	Overhead Cost Management	Cost Benefit from Recycling and Energy

 

For further information, visit the NMCL website.

Industry Forum is a NMCL Approved Improvement Provider to the NMCL Programme and is approved to provide improvement solutions across all four capability areas. To find out more about how we can support you on your NMCL journey, please email enquiries@if.wearecoal.work

Deeper inspection and analysis of both the global and UK top nonconformities shows that in actual fact, local challenges are replicated globally as the top three are shared by all territories.

	United Kingdom	Global
1.	8.5.1.1 Control plan	10.2.1 ISO 9001 Nonconformity & corrective action
2.	10.2.1 ISO 9001 Nonconformity & corrective action	10.2.3. Problem solving
3.	10.2.3. Problem solving	8.5.1.1 Control plan

 

Read Industry Forum’s Principle Engineer, Adam Woodward’s blog on the common challenges and how to address them in your organisation:

8.5.1.1 Control plan

IATF 16949 2016 requires organisations to:

Develop control plans (in accordance in with Annex A) at the system, subsystem, component and/or material level for the relevant manufacturing site and all product supplied.

9.1.1.1 The organization shall verify that the process flow diagram, PFMEA, and control plan are implemented, including adherence to the following:

1. measurement techniques
2. sampling plan
3. acceptance criteria
4. record of actual measurement values and/or test results for the variable data
5. reaction plans and escalation process when acceptance criteria are not met.

IATF rules 5^th sect 5.8 each on site audit shall include the assessing and evaluating of at least the following:

1. p) the effective implementation of the control plan, FMEA, and associated documents during the audit of manufacturing

IATF UK Trend

The 3^rd party audit process is identifying a number of major issues with the content and implementation of control plans:

• Links between the PFMEA and control plan and the cascade of special characteristics into the process documentation and process.
• Process flow, PFMEA and control plan alignment to ensure all process steps are covered and controlled.
• The control plan does not reflect the process being observed.
• Changes have been made to the process and are not included in the PFMEA and control plan.
• Control plans do not always exist for the process being audited.

Benefits of Control plans

The control plan reduces waste and improves the quality of products during design, manufacture and assembly. Control plans identify process characteristics and the control methods for the sources which cause variation in product characteristics.

Control plans focus resources on processes and products related to characteristics that are important to the customer. The proper allocation of resources on major items helps reduce costs without sacrificing quality.

As a living document, the control plan identifies and communicates changes in the product / process characteristics, control methods and characteristic measurement.

Control plans (more than just paper)

The key principle to understand is that the control plan is a live document, so there should be regular scheduled reviews to confirm its effectiveness.

Refer to the requirements in IATF 16949:2016 Clause 8.5.1.1.

If the nonconformance level is unacceptable, then investigate if nonconformance is related to incorrect/insufficiently robust definition within the control plan.

When investigating conformance or auditing a process:

Start with the control plan and look at the amount of alignment between its content and the actual process. See IATF 16949:2016 Clause 7.2.3.

10.2.1 Nonconformity & Corrective Actions

ISO 9001 2015 states:-

When nonconformity occurs, including any arising from complaints the organisation shall:

1. a) react to the nonconformity and, as applicable:

• Take actions to control and correct it;
• Deal with the consequences

1. b) evaluate the need for the actions to eliminate the cause(s) of the nonconformity, in order that it does not recur or occur elsewhere.

IATF in rule 5^th sect 5.11.5 defines in cases where the accepted corrective actions plan for a minor nonconformity is found to be not effectively implemented, a new major nonconformity shall be issued against the corrective action process and the previous minor nonconformity reissued as a major nonconformity.

IATF Global Trend

The global trend shows that organisations are not taking effective corrective actions on the issues which are identified during the 3^rd party audits, and their problem solving processes are not effective in addressing these issues. Therefore, during surveillance audits repeat nonconformities are being identified with the addition of another major nonconformity being recorded around the corrective action process.

The Key

The key to successful Problem Solving is to find the root cause of the problem and eliminate it. If the root cause is not identified clearly, then it is tempting to resolve the effect or the symptoms instead. Although the problem may be temporarily “fixed”, the root cause will happen again – it is like a dandelion, it will continue to grow until the root is removed. The cycle of repeatedly resolving the effect is known as Fire-Fighting, and can be very costly as it consumes resources (time, materials etc.). We should avoid this wherever possible.

Problem Solving

Problem solving can be defined as a process to identify root causes. It aims to resolve problems using a structured, team-based approach. Problem solving by nature is a reactive process. When an organisation first approaches the implementation of problem solving it is usually based on the response/reaction to some failing processes. As the organisation improves, the approach to problem solving changes and can now be used to drive improvement rather than just reacting to complaints and concerns. The ultimate goal of effective problem solving is to apply the lessons learnt to predict failures before the failure occurs.

We need to consider as an organisation:

1. What is a problem?
2. How to detect problems
3. When to use problem solving?

The Solution

Industry Forum  offers  training and support related to Effective Problem Solving and Core Tools implemention including control plans so if you are interested and would like to find out more then please contact us at enquiries@if.wearecoal.work

We have developed this handy FAQ in order to answer your questions about the AIAG/VDA FMEA alignment.

Will the new AIAG/VDA FMEA replace the current version AIAG 4^th edition?

• The new book has been released as AIAG/VDA FMEA 1st edition 2019 and is not designed to be the 5^th edition version for the current blue books.
• The current version of AIAG blue book 4^th edition will no longer be subject to update but still remains current and relevant at the present time and mandated by some OEMs.
• IATF are not mandating this as the approach to FMEA and the approach to FMEA will still be driven by the Customer Specific Requirements.

Has the new approach been mandated?

• No, it is not mandated by any OEMs to adopt this approach at present and is not mandated by IATF.
• Organisations will only need to meet this requirement if their customer mandates it in the future, or they choose to adopt this approach. Again, this would be subject to agreement with the customer.

Will SMMT Industry Forum be offering training?

• Yes, SMMT Industry Forum offers an AIAG/VDA Combined FMEA Awareness Course (1 Day) which is intended for delegates who have knowledge of the current approach to FMEA to explain how the new approach affects them.
• We will be delivering the new AIAG & VDA Process FMEA: Transitioning for Practitioners (2 Day) training on how to create and fully implement the new AIAG/VDA approach.

Will SMMT Industry Forum’s current FMEA training include the new approach?

• The current version of our FMEA training is based on the AIAG FMEA 4^th edition which remains current and applicable to industry; we will include some references to the new AIAG/VDA approach to outline the main differences. Delegates will need to attend either the 1 day awareness or 2 day practitioner course to fully understand the differences in approach.

Why is SMMT Industry Forum continuing to deliver the AIAG FMEA 4th edition training?

• We are continuing to deliver the current AIAG 4^th edition to ensure our delegates meet their current customer specific requirements which still subscribe to the 4^th edition approach.

Will the publication be included in SMMT Industry Forum’s courses?

• The publication is not included as part of the course. If you’d like to purchase the publication you can do so by visiting our web shop.

If you have any other questions, please contact our expert team on enquiries@if.wearecoal.work

 

The automotive supply chain consists of various systems and elements, all of which work together to create a management system that continues to grow as your customers and supply base grows. It’s an extremely complex process so ensuring that all the elements are functioning correctly is crucial in the continued running of the business.

Within a marketplace that is constantly changing under the stresses of the global economy, there are several challenges that the automotive supply chain faces. They can seem difficult and large-scale to the smaller sized businesses, however, having a strategic approach to your supply chain management can assist with approaching how these challenges will affect your business. Here are five challenges to keep in consideration when dealing with your supply chain.

 

Cost & Location

The constantly changing landscape of manufacturing means an increase in several things; innovation, technological advances and especially, consumer demand. Due to this, automotive manufacturers will be eager to see suppliers working locally, being able to be present in the locations where they have manufacturing bases. However, the cost of ensuring this is high and can be a task for smaller workforces. Evaluating the locations of business are crucial to optimising production lines however the possibility of relocating if needed can not only come at a high cost but also risk the ability to meet other client’s quotas and maintaining those quality relationships.

 

Inventory Management

There can often be a fine line between being correctly stocked and becoming under or overstocked and finding the balance between this can be somewhat difficult. It is a system that has to be closely defined and monitored to be able to maintain optimum functionality. Utilising processes and software that oversees your inventory can help you keep a firm stance on your inventory and so not acquire losses that can be avoided. Having a system in place that does so can allow you to make better-informed decisions regarding inventory.

 

Maintaining Control on a Global Scale

The automotive supply chain is on a huge international scale, with the larger companies having a clear presence in plenty of countries worldwide. Costs must be considered in every single aspect of the chain and moving towards a ‘just-in-time’ operation style can only be done if you have visibility of your full chain. It’s necessary to have full transparency and traceability and know exactly what occurs at every stage with data to support it. Once this is done, implementing software can help to automate the process to streamline it amongst the countries worked in.

 

Recall Issues

Amongst all industries, there can often be an issue with product recall and this can be for various reasons. To ensure that these are kept to a minimum as to not incur a cost to the company, processes must be in place. Quality Management systems and health and safety are pivotal in the automotive industry so quality control must be at the forefront of your processes. Having an error in this sense could affect several things such as your reputation with customers and especially tarnish your name within the industry which has long-lasting effects.

 

The Environment & Being Ethical

The 21st Century brings a whole host of issues that are new and important to customers worldwide. There is a myriad of regulations and quality standards that automotive companies must adhere to. They ensure that you fully responsible for the environmental and ethical impacts of your processes and these can be a challenge to maintain.

 

These challenges must be met head on to ensure your supply chain management is as polished as can be. For more information on how to tackle these issues, we offer a range of training and consultancy services covering process mapping and management, Inventory Management, Demand/Supply Management and Quality Systems as well as a library of AIAG publications and VDA publications.