Interview of Ekaizen

This time we have interviewed Ekaizen, that redacts its own blog “Pensando en kaizen” (thinking about kaizen). The photography displays a robot checking the superficial quality of a freshly painted body side. Here are the answers he kindly accepted to give us:

Do you think that the high levels of quality required today may lead to bring the implementation of a 100% exhaustive control of the production into general use?

This is nearly impossible ; though the tendency is to ensure higher and higher levels of quality, the very high number of features to be checked on a vehicle makes it unsustainable to implement a 100% exhaustive control. Thanks to vision or laser checking systems, 100% of some of the most important dimensions or functions of the vehicle can be verified. But nothing more; as for the rest of the points to be ensured, another philosophy must be applied, with the use of checking methods enabling to detect all the failures, such as poka-yoke, jidoka or self-checks through standardization.

In your opinion, what are the main qualities of a checking fixture ?

If what we are talking about is a fixture made to check the quality of manufactured parts, it seems logical that it must be reliable, to avoid having any doubt, and resistant, to ensure a correct functioning throughout time. But it must be also a fixture easy to use and modify, in order to adapt it in a simple way to the checking of various products, by adding for example a simple bloc, or by moving a series of screws and levers.

Do you think that checking fixtures are indispensable to quality in production workshops?

Today, yes, though this tendency must be changed toward checks directly on the production line. The use of checking fixtures is expensive, since we have to take a part out of the production flow, take it to the measurement room, check it and reintroduce it. This means you have to break the flow, disturb the order, the product is late during the fabrication process, which may have consequences on the delivery deadlines. What is more, interrupting the normal functioning of the line means that you introduce one variable more to trigger stops of the line, or even fabrication faults. These faults may occur during the transport of the parts to the measurement room, or during the checking process itself.

Which evolution and which improvements will be made on checking fixtures over the coming years ?

I have already partly answered this question with my previous answers. In my opinion, checking fixtures should be put closer, and directly integrated on the line. They must be useful and flexible, and must able to change in an easy and quick way to the check of a dimension or a feature, depending on the quality risks existing at that moment.

Which technologies could replace checking fixtures on a short term ? Do you think that vision checks could be a substitute?

In my point of view, today, the future will be in vision systems, more those integrated into robots. Indeed, their union gives them a high functionnality ; by modifying simply the robot working trajectory, you can check what you want at a precise moment.

But we must work to the construction of reliable production systems, that do not let failures pass, in order to reduce to the minimum the risk of producing faults. The simple fact to use parts with holes in well-defined areas may ensure us that our mounting jig is in a perfect state, before beginning to produce.

Does the 6-Sigma policy go enough mainstream in Spanish production companies, or is there still a long way to go?

I do not have experience to compare the situation of Spanish production companies with those abroad ; yet, what I can assure you is that we still have a long way to go, because in modern companies of mass production, such as the automobile sector ones, 6-Sigma policies are scarcely applied.

I hope that my points of view interested you, and that you thought that my explanations were corrects and understandable.

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