Have you ever heard the saying “You get what you pay for”? This is usually synonymous with the thought that you need to spend more money to get higher quality products. However, this is typically not aligned with the majority of consumers who want more for less. The higher quality products are expected. When it comes to your business’ success, it depends on its ability to deliver both cost and quality.

Fortunately, there are multiple cost avenues to create better quality. One direction you might follow--and the method our custom technology group uses--is to utilize quality-based engineering and manufacturing, allowing for delivery of both quality and value. This is accomplished by building quality into the product and process by reducing the potentials for costly mistakes. The process begins with a systematic approach to clearly identify a customer’s needs.

Typically, this can be achieved with the use of an FSD (Functional Specifications Document). The primary objective of an FSD is to clarify where the system boundary lies, and you can do that easily by identifying its inputs and expected outputs. Some examples would be:

• What is being built
• Why are they building it
• How will it be used
• Who will use it
• What is it expected to do after completion

In the beginning stages, there could be many different opinions about what needs to be designed, and it is highly unlikely everyone’s expectation is aligned for the outcome of the final product. The FSD can help to offset potentially unnecessary cost and re-work. Once clearly identified, the engineering team needs to develop designs that are aligned with manufacturing’s capabilities to determine the most innovative solutions, helping eliminate over processing and costly errors. In other words, develop ways to get better results with less work.

Once you have specifications and a design, manufacturing can be aided by utilization of better tools such as CNC machines, handheld measuring machines, and video measurement systems. These processes should be continuously monitored so your business can identify where changes are needed. This will ensure they are quality and cost critical activities. Ultimately, improvements in quality result in decreased production costs, allowing delivery of a high quality product for less. This in turns satisfies the customers’ needs and builds lasting relationships.

Author: Jason Coffey