|
Process Monitoring: Improving your Performance
Busitech's suite of Quality Window software products can play a very diverse role in a manufacturing plant, but one of the more common uses is for process monitoring.
Process monitoring is a method of sampling data at regular timed intervals. It satisfies the philosophy that in order to improve a process, you first need to understand the process. If you understand the process, then failures can be predicted and prevented. Some of the key objectives of good management can be met through process monitoring, such as:
- establish process control
- increase productivity
- improve quality
- reduce scrap
Examples of where process monitoring is applied include tracking various process settings, quality variables, production performance and device calibration. Process monitoring applications can also be used for change management, so that reasons for changes in a process can be readily and accurately identified. Examples of why a process might change include new equipment, staffing and/or raw material changes.
The simplest form of process monitoring is the long established practice of log keeping. The technician enters data, either manually on paper, or via data input into a computer program such as Quality Window. However, to truly understand a process, you need to analyse the data and look for trends and statistically significant information.
It is this last step of analysing data where the Quality Window suite of products really shine. Results are colour coded according to control limits; the program automatically alerts the user to rule violations; variable information and current best approaches can be accessed immediately; calculations such as average weights can be performed on the fly; and of course all data is available for immediate review by a wide variety of statistical calculations and charting options.
Whether your data is entered directly into Quality Window, or rather into a Excel® spreadsheet or Access database, there is a software product that will give you the tools to take process monitoring to the next level.
|
