Three Quality Metrics You Need To Follow
Quality metrics can be daunting if data isn’t organized or available for review. In order to properly gather data it’s important to institute a quality checklist in the form of an inspection criteria sheet (ICS) or a quality control checklist. The quality checklist has two main purposes: the first being to outline quality standards and product requirements that the supplier is expected to meet; and the second is to provide criteria for inspecting the product to ensure it meets the customer’s expectations. Without further ado, let find out what quality metrics will jumpstart the quality monitoring process.
1 Food Safety
The first quality metrics we will look at are food safety related. As a food producer it’s very important to be proactive in preventing food safety issues, and metrics are a good way to identify potential gaps or developing issues. Depending on the type of food and process, there are many different food safety metrics that can be captured. One example is foreign material detection. Many facilities utilize a metal detector or X-Ray machine to identify hazards in every production before product is shipped to consumers. Understanding trends in rejections or pieces that have foreign material could indicate supplier issues or manufacturing problems. Foreign material is just one example of hundreds of food safety metrics that can be used.
2 Incoming Quality of Received Goods
Incoming quality is a measurement of the percentage of materials coming into the manufacturing process from a given supplier that meet specification. In order to keep track of this metric, it’s important to have a detailed specification for each item that is received, and it is vital to share this list with your suppliers before starting production. This way the supplier has the opportunity to review requirements and notify all parties of adjustments that need to be made prior to mass production.
3 Customer Complaints/Return Material Authorizations/Returns
Customer Complaints/Return Material Authorizations/Returns are a measure of how often customers reject products or request returns of a bad product or products that doesn’t meet the proper specification. The only way to systematically prevent customer rejects is to closely monitor customer issues and proactively prevent them from recurring. One example of this might be sensory testing of product before it is shipped to the customer.
No matter what is on your Quality Checklist or how familiar you are with quality metrics, Qwerks can help jumpstart your journey. QWerks quality monitoring software not only captures data for quality metrics, but creates quality dashboards so that your entire team is on the same page with regards to Quality. Find out how QWerks can help your business today.
