Design Specs vs. Process Control, Capability, and SPC
This fourth episode of the "QDD Versus" series focuses on concepts relating to Design for Manufacturability. Understand how design specs fit into process control, process capability, and SPC and where they typically don't fit at all.
We talk about things to think about when setting limits on design features.
And, when defining controls for potential failures, knowing how processes are controlled can help us decide if the controls we have are good enough or not.
What's today's insight to action?
- Recognize that there's variation in everything, and we can use statistical methods to analyze and monitor the effects of that variability on the output of our manufacturing process.
- We want to define design limits for our parts, considering typical process capabilities. If we're not sure about the realistic process capabilities related to whatever we're designing, then we can talk to somebody that's in the manufacturing department (a process engineer or a quality engineer) and they can help determine what's a realistic tolerance that could be, or may be, maintained for the type of part that you're designing.
- Consider the manufacturing and technology limitations when designing. Just because it exists doesn't mean that we have access to it to be able to use it.
- If you work in a place with manufacturing or have a relationship with a trusted supplier that manufactures components for you, find out if they do statistical process control and get familiar with process variation and manufacturing. It will help you with Design for Manufacturing and it'll also help you design for your customers, both internal and external.
Explore More
Get a deeper dive of these topics through these other QDD episodes:
Design Tolerances Based on Economics (Using the Taguchi Loss Function)