A Low Budget: Ennemy #1
In the article The Checking Fixtures´Ennemies, we indicated first this factor for its importance and influence on the other factors. It is by far the main pitfall we are hit by, because all the chain in the automotive sector is very sensitive to the final cost and its reduced margin. This is how things must be, but in a lot of occasions, when this factor is too restrictive, it is impossible to compensate it with imagination. In our article, we wrote that to have a part made, the companies must carry out a series of investments and expenses in design, means of production, inspection and quality checks, production management and follow-up, logistics… and much more aspects that make it very difficult in a lot of cases to have a total cost lower than the determined budget when arriving at the end of the chain. When this budget is overspent, there is always somebody in charge of taking the cissors to begin to cut expenses by order of priority, until reaching the objective: maintaining a positive margin.
Checking fixtures, just like the other factors for inspection and quality check – staff, methods, reports, and so on – are likely to be the last links of the chain and are the most difficult to justify at first glance; consequently, the fact that they are hit by the main budget cuts is not surprising.
To make a checking fixture for a part, an infinity of solutions exist, with prices ranging from options enabling to make a full check to options for a minimal check, that should not be made simpler. Logically, it is better to choose a medium solution, as close as possible of the minimum cost but always ensuring the possibility to make the minimum checks. One of the most difficult aspects to determine are these minimum checks, that are always handed over to the most qualified staff to foresee the potential manufacturing problems through the basis of former results (FMEA - Failure Mode and Effects Analysis).
To get optimal results, you should have a range of regular providers having a good knowledge of the product you make and can determine quickly and simply which solution is the best one for each and every case. Finding global solutions for groups of parts with a similar problematic is usually a good working method.
The persons having to deal with cuts of expenses are the ones that should most clearly understand that a good check can avoid a lot of other useless and “no quality” expenses. It goes without saying that some customers try to get a very cheap price for the most complex checking fixtures, but on the long term, such a policy does not give good results, since it can imply the loss of a good provider of that type of services. Do not forget that quality has a price!!!
