Quality means Quality?

One of the best facepalm moments I had while working in manufacturing was when a brand new quality policy was rolled out. In the definition of quality was the word ‘quality’. For the next three months engineers were walking around the building laughing about the quality policy, with some people genuinely confused about what quality actually meant.

Is there a good definition?

Quality is Job #1, Quality Matters, Quality Never goes out of Style, 100% Quality, Quality is our Business.

We’ve all heard the quotes and slogans. And we all agree, quality is good and we want it. Sure, why not? Problem is there are many different definitions of quality and so these slogans mean different things depending on your perspective.

Definitions of quality surrounding something that is good or works really well (performance) actually have little bearing on manufacturing controls. Manufacturing quality has a surprisingly simple definition - Low variation from expected performance. This means producing something that is exactly the same every single time. Think McDonald’s french fries, they are same no matter in what city, state, or country you are.

Manufacturing quality is something you take for granted every day. That your car brakes work, that the train you are riding doesn’t shut down, that the devices in your hospital keep working properly, all these rely on manufacturing quality. The fact is we react and complain when things don’t work because that is generally the exception. If you’ve ever tried to build furniture or repeat a task like cutting paper exactly the same hundreds of times, you’ve begun to feel the challenge of manufacturing quality.

Putting every molecule where its supposed to be

Now lets move down to a gate on a 10nm computer chip transistor. We’re talking about a structure that is roughly 100 atoms wide. To build that structure you have to print, deposit, and etch with that precision several times over for a single chip. Now do this millions of times in a month on thousands of individual processes. How on earth do we continue to get chips used all over the world that work a lot more often then they don’t (i.e. manufacturing quality)? Here are a few starting points.

• Use the exact same equipment configured the exact same way

• Maintain you equipment in the exact same way, keeping everything in a like new state as much as possible

• Use time-trending of sensor data (#FaultDetection #SPC) to detect when conditions in the equipment are changing over time

• Lock down process recipes and match them across all like equipment

• Automate - This includes automating the data (route flow, process recipes used, selection of equipment to run, etc.) and automating the handling of product as it moves

• Measure mid-process measurements wherever you can to ensure equipment wear, breakage, or changes are not occurring undetected

• Manage and track every process and equipment change that could reasonably affect the outcome

Keeping these practices in mind sets the foundation for manufacturing quality. This foundation is easily one of the strongest competitive advantages in advanced manufacturing today and is often the difference between making and losing money for factories all over the world today.