A manufacturing company’s product defects can be a source of stress and anxiety. The company can feel frustrated if tons of time, money, and energy is spent on a product with defects that can’t be easily fixed.
The effects can be felt far and wide, from decreased customer satisfaction to the cost per unit of a particular product. It can even cause harm to the overall success and reputation.
Manufacturers need quality products to succeed, so it’s essential to find, be aware of, and deal with any problems that might occur in the future (or have already happened) because of product defects.
Product Defects and Negative Effects
Understanding the effects that occur as a result of product defects can give you insight into why it’s so essential to make changes to avoid them. There are several below, but others may crop up, as well.
- Decreased ROI, a lower bottom line, and other financial issues
- Less efficiency and worker productivity during manufacturing tasks
- Additional costs associated with repurposing, discarding, or fixing defective and damaged products
- Rising costs from the need for additional payroll to handle problems
- Less customer loyalty and satisfaction, as well as the need to work through customer complaints, including potential litigation
- Adverse effects on the company’s reputation as a whole
Looking at the list above, you can easily see why manufacturers want to cut out product defects. The good news is that there are methods to reduce many of these defects or even prevent them from occurring in the first place.
This article will examine what product defects are and what is most common in a manufacturing environment. Then, we’ll look at how many of these defects are caused and share some strategies and tips to reduce manufacturing defects.
Types of Common Manufacturing Product Defects
Optimizing the manufacturing area is one of the best techniques for manufacturing companies to reduce manufacturing defects. When it comes down to it, this involves using every possible process, tool, and method to improve the environment and get the best results.
Part of this looks like finding improvement opportunities at every step in the process. It also involves implementing long-term and consistent changes in actions and standards across the manufacturing floor.
The main goal here is to get the best output available with the least number of resources but also keep the quality as high as possible. There are a few ways that this process can begin, which are listed below:
- Consider the standards and quality associated with every supplier. This includes all raw materials used to create products and the outsourced process steps.
- Go over each machinery’s success and process. Ensure you include the processes a machine does while manufacturing a product.
- Think about the performance, training, and actions of all teams, supervisors, and workers who have any task involved with the manufacturing process.
- Manufacturers then support high-quality control procedures and standards to keep compliance high while focusing on the company’s goals.
- Make sure you use a dedicated and regular maintenance schedule. This can help cut down on any defects related to machine failure or breakdown.
- Use technology and automation for steps that have a large number of errors. This can eliminate the need for lengthy, complex, and repetitive actions in a process.
- Consider how effective your control loops are. Look at areas where these aren’t productive or may overlap.
When you optimize the entirety of the manufacturing environment, it’s excellent for reducing manufacturing defects. You have a chance to see what parts of a process could cause (or already have caused) product defects.
Determining where the problem areas are is key to moving forward. If you don’t know where the issue is, you can’t move forward with a plan to fix things. Knowing all the most common defects that occur during a manufacturing process can also be helpful.
- Assembly Defects: These defects relate to how manufacturers assemble a product and when errors are associated.
- Construction Defects: These include defects to materials used to put together a product, such as fasteners, bolts, or screws.
- Design Defects: These are unintentional defects related to the product design specifications.
- Electrical Defects: These defects are related to electrical components or writing in a product.
- Functional Defects: This defect is related to the purpose or function of a product.
- Harmful Chemical Defects: These defects are related to any unintentional defects in the production process related to chemicals.
- Packaging and Printing Defects: This kind of defect relates to the packaging or printing of a product.
- Raw Material Defects: These types of defects are related to raw materials used during production.
- Sales or Marketing Defects: Distribution, sales, and marketing strategy defects for a product fall under this heading.
- Visual Defects: This refers to the look of a part of a product that has been finished. The defects could be only visible or might cause injury, such as jagged or sharp edges.
The Most Common Causes of Defects in Manufacturing
As we mentioned, knowing what is causing manufacturing defects is essential in moving forward. Part of that process is finding either an indirect or direct cause of the fault. The good news is that manufacturers can sort these into three overall categories: marketing defects, manufacturing defects, and design defects.
MARKETING DEFECTS
Marketing defects are unique because they usually don’t relate to a faulty product. Instead, this defect is in how the product has been marketed to customers. As a result, a massive liability for manufacturing companies is misleading your customers about how a product performs, works, or how dangerous or safe it is.
When packaging products, make sure you include easy-to-understand yet detailed instructions. Please explain how to use the product correctly and how not to use it. This can reduce the potential for a consumer to misuse the item, which helps your company avoid litigation.
If the products could cause bodily harm, property damage, accident, illness, or injury, they must include evident and relevant warning labels. Again, skipping this step could lead to serious legal issues for a company.
MANUFACTURING DEFECTS
Manufacturing defects, the primary focus of this article, are any that happen while manufacturing. In nearly all cases, these are unintentional and unplanned. Most of the time, these defects are related to a process flaw related to human error or mechanical failure.
This error is often sporadic and not seen across the entire product line. Some of the most common manufacturing defects are functional, assembly, construction, and visual.
Once you realize that manufacturing defects are in place, you should go through a detailed investigation to look at every aspect of the manufacturing process. This includes the equipment, tools, and machinery used during manufacturing.
In addition, make sure all employees have access to adequately targeted training, especially those who work with complicated machines. This will help cut down on the potential for human errors. Using Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software can help automate tasks capable of more errors and smooth processes and allow you to use innovative technology such as the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT).
DESIGN DEFECTS
In some cases, a bad design can lead to defects, which are considered planned defects. That doesn’t mean that the defect is intentional, but some designers take more risks than they should when creating specifications for designs. That would make it a calculated risk.
Design defects mean there is a high likelihood many consumers will experience the same flaw. Cheaply built cables often have poorly designed connectors that wear over time.
For example, a design that uses a high failure process, a poor material, or a hazardous chemical would all be intentional design defects. The big problem with design defects is that these result in issues that affect every single product across the line.
Use the advice of the design team and consider all the potential outcomes of a design before you move to the production stage. It would be best if you also thought about which materials are the best to use throughout the process.
Whenever possible, utilize model-based outcomes and data-driven technology to determine the potential for later defects. Implement testing for all stages of the design process, even to the end when you have a complete product.
The correction method will vary depending on the product defect you are facing. However, several strategies are available to prevent certain defects and guard against defects in general.
Significant Benefits of Cutting Down on Manufacturing Defects
Two of the most substantial benefits of dropping manufacturing defects include better efficiency and higher productivity. All defects in a product are a form of waste. This includes waste of materials and products, but that isn’t everything. Defects can also require additional labor to repair the items causing defects and create new replacement products.
In addition, manufacturing defects can create downtime for machinery when changes are implemented or repairs need to be made. It also leads to wasted resources by disposing of or handling defective items.
Looking at all these issues caused by manufacturing defects, you can see how resolving those problems is highly important. However, the many benefits are even more significant than you prevent a defect in manufacturing from happening altogether. Some of them include:
Electronic waste is challenging because it is expensive and difficult to recycle and dispose of.
- Better profits
- Less overhead
- More efficient resource and time management
- Elevated customer satisfaction
- Additional return business
- Fewer complaints to deal with
- Better company reputation and performance
- Higher quality
- Less downtime and elevated productivity
Seeing how many benefits are possible from cutting down on production defects, the best option is to constantly work toward having no flaws. While having zero defects might be impossible, the main idea is to keep working on things as if you could reach no defects during manufacturing.
This is known as continuous improvement. It means that a business works to improve and streamline all processes related to manufacturing products. You can implement several practices to make this how your own company runs.
- Be proactive about identifying errors and analyzing processes that might lead to a defect as soon as possible. The sooner a defect is identified, the quicker manufacturers can handle it. When faults are detected early, fewer products with defects are made, and factories can resolve issues more smoothly.
- Create and implement a strict set of quality control processes that encompass all parts of the process.
- Use data-driven analysis and complex testing to know where future issues may occur.
- Integrate every step in the process of production using automation and technology.
- Bring in a consulting company in your sector to give a minute-by-minute analysis of your manufacturing process. These consultants can help determine where you need to make improvements.
- Train workers to get better results from a more comprehensive understanding of processes. Employees should be capable of identifying the issues that might lead to waste or create defects.
- Monitor and track the performance of workers related to production errors.
- Offer motivation to team members and employees to push them to improve continually.
Methods to Reduce Manufacturing Defects
Engineers can use several strategies to limit manufacturing defects. Companies must implement these changes in all processes to get the best results. Being proactive is the best option since you can stop potential issues before they ever have a chance to occur. This avoids litigation, lowered productivity, and financial losses.
If you are looking for strategies you should put in place for manufacturing, a few below are designed to work with a system of continuously noticing and dealing with product defects.
APPROPRIATE QUALITY MANAGEMENT
To enforce quality management, make sure you have easy-to-understand policies and standards. But, of course, measures should also be in place for the same reason. This pertains to everything from outsourcing agents to selecting quality suppliers and other things across the entire process of manufacturing a product.
PRESERVE A POSITIVE WORK ATMOSPHERE
When a worker is engaged and happy about their work, it can significantly benefit the company. These workers are less likely to engage in actions that could cause mistakes and create product defects.
WORK TOWARD CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
Every step of the manufacturing process needs to be analyzed, starting with procuring raw materials and ending with a stocked inventory. This includes the marketing and sales strategies that are included with every product.
FIND SOLUTIONS TO ALL PROBLEMS
Anytime a product defect is found, or there is potential or one to be created, someone needs to work out what is causing it. Then, solutions should be found for every problem so there is less worry about what might happen in the future.
IMPLEMENT AUTOMATION AND TECHNOLOGY
Being open to new technology, such as data- and model-driven machine learning, IIOT, and ERP systems helps you streamline manufacturing processes. Use automated systems in place of methods that are highly likely to experience human error and defects.
KEEP COMPLIANCE IN MIND
One of the best things you can do for production standards is to build a company culture around compliance. This includes explaining why safety and product quality are essential to serve your customers better.
BRING IN EMPLOYEE FEEDBACK
The people who work in a manufacturing company have unique experience and knowledge about diverse topics, such as machinery, materials, and processes needed to create your products. Having one-on-one talks with those on the plant floor can be very useful. Consider making an employee suggestion program so team members can bring up potential issues quickly.
TRACK PROGRESS
When you correct a product defect, that doesn’t mean the process is complete. It’s rarely possible to take one step and then move on. Instead, ensure you have quantified results and revisited policies to note any inconsistencies and methods to improve in the future.
KEEP A MAINTENANCE SCHEDULE
A maintenance schedule is a must for any manufacturing environment. Make sure someone is performing all of the needed maintenance. This includes a regular and frequent inspection of processes, machinery, and product results.
USE TESTING
Make use of innovative technology to do complex testing of your products. Then, determine how these products are affected by different environments and situations, like temperature or environmental changes.
Final Thoughts
All manufacturing companies hope to please customers by creating products of excellent quality. Customers expect the products will do their job without failure, illness, or injury. Therefore, being intelligent and strategic in minimizing manufacturing defects is essential. It benefits the manufacturer, their bottom line, and customers’ satisfaction.
Manufacturing, as a sector, is going through many robust changes. It’s a new world in some regards. Advances like intelligent factories, cloud computing, and automation have allowed companies to revolutionize the industry’s future. The ones who use technology to lower manufacturing defects will have the best chance of progressing and finding success.
