15/03/2024
The challenges of Statistical Process Control (SPC)
Venugopal chinayah
Venugopal chinayah
Big Data & Analytics Consultant. Six sigma black…
Published May 31, 2018
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While statistical process control been a integral part of manufacturing process in many organization ,but most organizations actually struggle with it, then actually making any good use of it. One of the major problem of SPC is not that organization doing it for improving their process , but actually part of requirement.
The down side of such approach is that organization actually struggle to make a meaningful use of the SPC to keep process in control and actually using the learning SPC to make any further meaningful impact. The fundamental is that to ensure the SPC is used where is actually needed not only when there is data collected or measurement done. SPC is implemented when the desired outcome is able to match customer requirement and the organization strive to meet this and use the learning to improve the quality further. But most of the cases this is not cases, but we do see SPC agenda is pushed forward even when the product in the New Product Introduction (NPI) stage.
While we it is okay to implement the SPC from the learning similar earlier product, the unique characteristics of the product seldom is looked into which is where the most critical failure happens, causes the most hiccups in the during new product launch.
Some of the things that need be considered when implementing SPC
SPC is the last phase of improvement when your product is preforming at optimal requirement.
Improving through is SPC is not meeting specification any more, but to bring the product to next customer desirable level.
This things if considered when organization embarking on SPC practice is there is will be minimal firefighting activity but actual improvement activity. While in fast world where we are chasing time in between new product launches and meeting orders, there is real need some attention is given to the way we practice SPC in organization. The last thing that we want is that the this being pushed into another documentation activity.