Factory & Production

A supplier was vetted on a certificate, a sample and a quotation, and turned out to be a trading company with no line of its own. Nothing in the vetting had been wrong; the three items simply answered different questions …

Three quotations arrive against one specification, and the spread is wide enough to look like a mistake. It usually is not: the three suppliers priced three different scopes, and the difference sits in the tooling line, the certification line or …

The first list is the least important part of finding a manufacturer. Most programmes fail at the shortlist stage, after three plausible suppliers have been asked three slightly different questions, and the answers cannot be compared. A structured process f……

A hi-pot test was performed on every unit and a unit with damaged insulation still reached the market. The test had run at the right voltage for a duration short enough to pass a compromised barrier, and nothing in the …

Two lines build the same board with the same components. One has a documented electrostatic control programme with daily verification of straps, footwear and benches; the other has the mats and the straps, and nobody checks whether they work. Both …

Two 8D reports described the same defect. One closed in twelve days with a fixture change; the other ran for two months and ended where it started, because step four had been written as a description of the defect rather …

A defect was reported from one market, and the same production lot was shipped to another market two weeks later. The factory had recorded the complaint, replied to it, and continued producing from the same lot, because nothing in the …

The gate that catches most defects is usually the one with the least inspection in it. Incoming verification and final inspection are easy to count and easy to report; the in-process gate is where the defect is actually prevented, and …

Four failures account for most QC breakdowns on charger programmes, and three of them are visible in the paperwork within an hour. None of the four is a machine problem, and all four survive because they look like normal practice …

Two audits were carried out on the same line in the same month. One produced a twelve-page report and no change; the other produced four findings, a retrained station and a revised fixture. The difference was not the auditor. It …

A lot passed the factory's inspection and failed the customer's, using the same sampling table on both sides. The table had been agreed; the defect classification had not. A scratch that the factory recorded as minor was a major defect …

The most expensive functional test is usually the one that measures the fewest useful things. A line tester with twelve positions and a limit copied from a datasheet costs more per unit than a tester with four positions and limits …