Educational Information
Why Calibration Cost is Not Driven by Equipment Price?
May 3, 2021Here we are going to give you some insight of Why Calibration cost is not driven by Equipment Price? and Why is cost higher?
By given this information, you will gain understanding of why most of the calibrator’s lab in Malaysia quoting you a pinch in your company revenue.
Understand difference of equipment pricing and calibration service costs and the cost of not calibrating, will give you brief understanding.
Equipment Pricing is Determined by Manufacturing Costs
- Manufacturing an equipment, the cost can be varying for each item produce.
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The cost included as below:
- Engineering costs
- Materials for the product
- Cost of manual labor
- Quality control costs
- Product testing costs
- Marketing and sales costs
- Administrative overhead costs
- Cost of the machines
- Tools, and instruments needed in the manufacturing process
- The upkeep for maintenance on those assets.
- Above are all the costing of a manufacturing to produce and measurement equipment, that bring you thinking and wonder how some products can be sold at retail so reasonable in price to the user?
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Well, the answer is, as manufacturer to be remain in the market competitively, management of the company will manage the resource and supply chain and to controls to drive costs down in the processes as well as the cost benefits of volume to sell at lower profit margin in order to be competitive while still making a healthy bottom line.
- The largest cost for a calibration lab is the labor. Labor play the important role in calibration job. It requires skill and knowledgeable staff to calibrate equipment. Their training and skill upgrading is done regular to ensure they are performing the calibration tasks correctly.
- The second largest cost is Laboratory assets such as lab master equipment require calibrate and laboratory environment control need to maintain regularly according to National Standard requirement.
- And even though some calibrations can be batched to calibrate 5 or maybe even 10 similar items at once, it doesn't lend itself to the mass production for manufacturing of an instrument.
- The costing in calibration and costing in manufacturing is not the same, with the explanation above, the costing of calibration is higher than manufacturing an equipment.
The Cost (Risk) of Not Calibrating
- The purpose of calibration of equipment is to ensure your measurement of your product/service do not result in false acceptance (consumer risk) or false rejection (producer risk), which leads to cost and safety outcomes.
- Understanding that recalibration of your instrument lets you evaluate how the instrument was performing when you had made those quality decisions should signify the importance of recalibration
- You would be throwing away your measurement traceability, never knowing whether the instrument was outside of acceptance limits, leading you astray on product acceptance decisions all the while. Close that traceability loop by having your instruments calibrated. Otherwise, it may cost you more than you think you've saved!
- Neglecting calibration can lead to unscheduled production or machine downtime, product and process quality issues or even product recalls and rework.
- Furthermore, if the instrument is critical to a process or is located in a hazardous area, allowing that sensor to drift over time could potentially result in a risk to employee safety.
PDCA - How can it help you improve? - Part 4
Mar 23, 2021After all the Planning, Doing, Checking, is time to Act.
1. Things going as planned? If so then you should continue.
2. Well, there is some issue or problems, Then need to act on the issue to correct and prevent further issue.
3. Improve the work system.
4. Repeat the solutions that worked.
At the end of the fourth phase, the PDCA cycle shall repeat again to seek a continuous improvement in your process.
Hope with our posting of PDCA, you have one or two point take home value and learn together with us.
Continue to watch our news section for new news, information about our services to offer.
PDCA - How can it help you improve? - Part 3
Mar 22, 2021In this section, once you have completed your trial, test, or simulation in the Do section, it's time to review and analyse the result of each of the test that you have conducted.
This stage is very important because it allows you to evaluate your solution is workable and gave improvement to your process that you intend to improve and also decision making to continue use or revise your plans as necessary. Review the expectations that you have defined in Step 1, to assess whether your idea was a success.
During your review of your result, it is important to compare the results between before and after.
If the results obtained in the verification section are not satisfactory, it is recommended that you return to the Planning phase to relook and re-plan again.
This is the basically the Check section.
PDCA - How can it help you improve? - Part 2
Mar 20, 2021Once we have identified a potential solution, the ''Do'' stage is where we test the proposed or potential solutions or changes.
Ideally, this should be test it safely with a small-scale studies. This will show us a quick wheather our proposed changes achieve the
desired result without interrupting the rest of your operation and less expensive to undertake as well.
After all the test that you have undertake, make sure all the date is collected to be analyser later in the Check Section.
Hope you able to run thru your Plan and Do section smoothly in your process.
PDCA - How can it help you improve? - Part 1
Mar 19, 2021Progauge Enterprise team has PDCA implemented in all our businesses. Help most into our business decision making or improvement process.
Here we share our knowledge of what we successfully implemented this into our businesses and our life, so that you may benefit with from it.
There will be series of the post up in our Website News section side. For today we will talk about the 1st step of PDCA.
P – for Plan
The planning stage is for mapping out what you are going to do to try to solve a problem or otherwise change a process. During this step, you will identify and analyse the problem or opportunity for change, develop hypotheses for what the underlying issues or causes are, and decide on one hypothesis to test first.
This are some of the question we ask during our brainstorming, you may use it to help you in this 1st step of PDCA - Planning stage.
- What is the core problem we need to solve?
- Is this the right problem to work on?
- What information do we need to fully understand the problem and its root cause?
- Is it feasible to solve it?
- What resources do we need or have?
- What are the measures of success?
- How will the results from a small trial translate to a full-scale implementation?
5S Series - Sustain
Jan 20, 2021
Today we come to the last series of 5S, which is Sustain.
Sustain is the most difficult section but without sustaining the activities of 1 to 4 of the S series, your effort will be wasted.
Management Support is important
Without commitment from managers, the 5S processes won’t last long. Supervisors and managers should be involved in auditing the 5S work processes, and getting feedback from workers. They also need to provide the tools, training, and time for workers to get their jobs done right.
Department tours has to be done properly
Bringing teams from one department to visit other departments will help familiarize the entire workforce with the processes of your facility. This type of “cross auditing” helps to spread good ideas, and inspires people to come up with new ways to improve the 5S implementation.
Updated training
As time passes, there may be changes in your workplace, such as new equipment, new products, or new work rules. When this happens, revise your 5S work standards to accommodate those changes, and provide training on the new standards.
Progress audits
The standards that are created in the 5S program should provide specific and measurable goals. Checking on those goals with a periodic audit can provide important information and guidance. Where is 5S working well? Where are teams falling behind?
Performance evaluations
Once you know your goals are reasonable, make performance part of each employee evaluation. When teams and individuals perform well, celebrate it, and post overall results so each team can see how they compare to the rest of the facility.
Hope with this last series of the 5S, you able to implement successfully in your process or offices. 5S can help to improve your work area situation to better and better each time. Helping you to save cost in your daily operation as well.
Till then keep on 5S practices all time!
Stay Safe and Stay Healthy!
5S Series - Standardize
Jan 15, 2021We have cover the three steps of 5S cover the basics of clearing, organizing, and cleaning a work space; on their own, those steps will provide short-term benefits. The fourth step is as well important we name it as Standardize, or “seiketsu,” which simply means standardization.
By writing down what is being done, where, and by whom, you can incorporate the new practices into normal work procedure. This paves the way for long-term change.
Record down the decisions that you make in your 5S program will help ensure that your work doesn’t just disappear. If you made a 5S map in the Set In Order step, that map can be part of your new standard for the area. In the same way, the process that you use for red-tagging items can be written down and included in the standards.
Writing out your decisions doesn’t mean you can’t change your mind, though. The purpose of 5S is to make your workplace better, not to make it unchangeable. You are writing the standards for your facility, and you can change them to fit new information or new business needs.
Below are some tools for Standardizing that you may use at your work practices,
This communication is a key part of the Standardize step. Common tools for this process include:
- 5S checklists – Listing the individual steps of a process makes it easy for workers to follow that process completely. It also provides a simple auditing tool to check progress later on.
- Job cycle charts – Identify each task to be performed in a work area, and decide on a schedule or frequency for each of those tasks. Then, assign responsibility to a particular worker (or job duty). The resulting chart can be posted visibly to resolve questions and promote accountability.
- Procedure labels and signs – Provide operating instructions, cleaning steps, and preventative maintenance procedures right where that information will be needed.
5S able to improve your facilities and improve working environment.
5S Series - Shine
Jan 6, 2021Shine moves far beyond than just pushing a broom around every now and then. It involves regular cleaning of every part of the work area — often a daily wipe-down, and a more thorough cleaning each week.
Importantly, the Shine step is not meant to be a job for the maintenance or janitorial staff.
Each worker should clean their own work area, and the equipment they use.
This approach has several benefits:
- Workers who are familiar with the area will quickly notice any problems that arise
- Hazards or difficult situations will be understood and accounted for
- Items that are out of place or missing will be recognized
- Workers will tend to keep their own workspaces cleaner during normal operations
But for 5S to give the best results, each worker should take personal responsibility for their own working space.
Shine can be as Preventative Maintenance
Keeping work areas clean will have many advantages. One important advantage is that it’s easy to spot leaks, cracks, or misalignments.
If the people keeping the area clean are the same people who work there regularly, they will be quick to recognize any of these problems.
Leaving those problems unnoticed and unresolved could result in equipment failure, safety hazards, and loss of productivity.
With the constant cleaning and inspections used in the Shine step of 5S, the system can feed into a preventative maintenance program.
This way, 5S can extend the working life of equipment and help reduce emergency downtime.
5S Series - Set In Order
Jan 5, 2021The goal here is to organize the work area. Each item has it's own place and should be easy to find, use, and return: a place for everything, and everything in its place. Tools that are used frequently should be stored near the place they are used.
Spare equipment, supplies, and other tools that are used less often can be kept in a central location, where multiple teams can share them.
Items that are typically used together (such as drills and drill bits) should be stored near each other.
Each of these decisions will make sense on its own, but it may become difficult to keep track of everything.
It may be helpful to create a 5S map as part of this process.
A 5S map is a diagram or floor plan that provides an overview of a work area, process, or station. It provides a visual reference to show where the tools, supplies, workers, and travel paths are, and how they relate to each other. A good map may also include a description of the work that happens in the area shown.
No matter which approach is used to create it, the resulting 5S map should be kept as a training tool, used for reference in later steps of 5S, and updated over time as the work area changes.
Once storage locations are assigned, each storage area should be labeled. Label the outside of cabinet doors to help workers quickly identify what’s inside each one. Then, label any interior shelves to show where different supplies belong. The same ideas extend to rack labels, bins, and other storage systems.
Organization can extend to the floor, too. Work areas, movement lanes, and storage for supplies and finished products can all be marked with floor marking tape.
Hope above will help you and your organization have knowledge and implement 5S.
5S able to improve your facilities and improve working environment.
5S Series - Sort
Jan 4, 2021Let's continue with education with this time is 5S. Today posting we touch in first of the 5S which is Sort.
For this step, take a close look at the items, tools, and materials in a work area. Items that are necessary or useful for the work being done in that space should be kept there. Everything else should be removed.
Some of those removed items will need to be thrown away or recycled. Other items might belong to another work process or location; they should be returned to their “homes.” However, you might find some items that you aren’t sure about.
Red-Tagging Unknown Items
If you find an item that you can’t identify, or that has uncertain ownership, it’s time to use a red tag. “Red-Tagging” temporarily attaches a highly-visible tag to the item, which notes where it was found and when. Then, red-tagged items from all work areas are collected in a single location: a “lost and found” for tools, materials, and equipment.
So let's begin this very 1st step of 5S - Sorting!
Remember clearing out unnecessary materials in step 1 (Sort) will provide the space needed to organize the important items in step 2 (Set In Order).
Then, once the work space is de-cluttered and organized, dirt and grime can be removed in step 3 (Shine).
These changes to workers’ job duties and work environment should be reflected in updated procedures through step 4 (Standardize).
Finally, those new procedures won’t amount to much unless responsibility is assigned and progress is tracked — as required for step 5 (Sustain). And with responsibility and tracking, workers will continue to apply the steps, returning to step 1.
5S - What is it? - Series
Dec 22, 2020Information of 5S can be ontain from website easily. There are more of 5S details in the website. Here Progauge will share in the simplest term of 5S that you able to learn.
We will do it in series positing. Do check our news platform time to time.
Here is what is the 5S that we explaining. Don't worry that we will go in details each of the ''S'' in series of our posting.
Enjoy!
SWOT analysis for Small Businesses is Important
Dec 11, 2020A SWOT analysis could help you and your small business operates in smart, informed or cost saving business decisions.
Understanding your company’s position within your market or industry and knowing how and where you can grow is critical for any small business owner.
Strategically develop your company rather than wasting your efforts trying to expand into a market that doesn’t align with your business or being overrun by surprise competitor.
What is SWOT Analysis?
SWOT – which stands for ''strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats'' – is a type of analysis that helps you develop your business strategy by comparing internal factors (strengths and weaknesses) against external factors (opportunities and threats).
A SWOT analysis has four quadrants:
STRENGTHS Strengths are internal, positive attributes of your company. These are things that are within your control. (Internal company factors) |
WEAKNESSES Weaknesses are negative factors that detract from your strengths. These are things that you might need to improve on to be competitive. (Internal company factors) |
OPPORTUNITIES Opportunities are external factors in your business environment that are likely to contribute to your success. (Factors external to the company) |
THREATS Threats are external factors that you have no control over. You may want to consider putting in place contingency plans for dealing them if they occur. (Factors external to the company) |
A SWOT analysis is a good tool for general business strategizing and serves as a starting point for team discussions. When conducted thoroughly, a SWOT analysis can uncover a much more information and can be useful in a number of situations for improvement of your company.
Let’s breakdown the SWOT Analysis Process.
We know that SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats – Let’s take a look at each element individually, each of the quadrants has few examples on how to established each of the quadrants.
S Strengths |
W Weakness |
O Opportunities |
T Threats |
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One of the most important parts of your SWOT analysis is using it to identify new strategies and goals for your business. For example, you can:
- Create a plan to build up your strengths even more.
- List ways you can work on building up your weaknesses.
- Set SMART goals for each of the opportunities you identified.
- Devise a plan to use your strengths to decrease the threats you identified.
Then, look for ways to combine data from different quadrants in even more ways:
- Explore how you can combine your strengths and opportunities to develop new strategies.
- Try combining strengths and threats to identify threats you can eliminate.
- Look at your weaknesses and opportunities to create a list of areas ready for improvement.
- Make a list of areas to avoid that fall under weaknesses and threats.
Once you understand how to establish your SWOT data and find ways to use it strategically, the SWOT analysis will be a tool that you can use over and over in your business to improve further strategies accordingly to current.
Progauge, will share its own SWOT analysis in series, which we have brainstorms over our yearly business meeting. Hope with this sharing you able to have some lead to gets your own SWOT analysis up and running in your company and improve tremendously.
Why Calibration is important and needed?
Dec 7, 2020Why calibration is important and needed?
- Is requirement of your Quality System.
- Is about accuracy of all measuring devices.
- Equipment accuracy will degrade over time.
- Typically caused by normal wear and tear. However, changes in accuracy can also be caused by electric or mechanical shock or a hazardous manufacturing environment (e.x., oils, metal chips etc.).
- Depending on the type of instrument and the environment in which it is being used, it may degrade very quickly or over a long period of time.
- The improtant mindful of calibration is that it's improves the accuracy of the measuring device. Accurate measuring devices improve product quality.
When should you calibrate your measuring device?
- According to the recommendation of the manufacturer.
- After any mechanical or electrical shock.
- Periodically (annually, quarterly, monthly)
- Requirement of your quality system.
- The hidden costs and risks with un-calibrated measuring device could be much higher than the cost of calibration. Therefore, it is recommended that the measuring instruments are calibrated regularly by a reputable company to ensure that errors associated with the measurements are in the acceptable range.
Waste No. 7 - Waste of Transportation
Dec 2, 2020Waste No. 7 - Waste of Transportation
What it is?
- Transport a lot from one process to one process taking long period of time is a waste of transportation.
- A poor layout of process from start to finishing can also lead to movement of lot and people taking long period of time.
- Large size of batches can also contribute waste of transportation.
- Multiple storage area can also cause waste of transportation.
- Multiple storage of tools and equipment causes waste of transport.
- Create value stream and make the flow of the process at the pull of customers.
- Creating value stream, created process that production line contain value adding process rather a functional process.
- Reducing the space of the process to make the process in short and fast output.
- Improving factory layout through the use of value stream mapping and process mapping can give huge savings in time and money.
- Waste of overproduction can also lead to waste of transportation. Over production lot need to travel more frequent.
By reducing Transportation you will improve the productivity and process efficiency and further reducing operating costs and eventually increase operating profit margin.
If you have more idea why not drops us in comment - Thanks!
Waste No. 6 - Waste of Defects
Dec 1, 2020
7 Waste of Lean Manufacturing series and today we talk about
Waste No. 6 - Waste of Defects
What it is?
- Waste of correction that includes additional work implemented into the product.
- Cause by unclear working instructions or procedure.
- Such as unnecessarily of tolerance such as too tight that beyond machine capability to produce.
- Inadequate training given to the operator.
- Incapable of the machines.
How you over come it?
- Poka Yoke can help in reducing or eliminating error produce by human.
- Process that can be replace using automation can further assist operator in producing consistent product.
- Regular OJT (On Job Training), this is to instill operator knowledge of the work and upgrading skills.
- Regular review the design of the product with value engineering or value analysis to identify opportunity of improvement.
- Too many of over processing, Off-cut product can also lead to defects pile up and potential create mix of bad and good.
Hope above simple sharing can give you some of pointers to help your process to overcome the waste No.6 - Defects in Lean manufacturing.
By reducing defects you will improve the productivity and process efficiency and further reducing operating costs and eventually increase operating profit margin.
If you have more idea why not drops us in comment - Thanks!
Waste No. 5 - Overprocessing
Nov 30, 2020Waste No. 5 - Waste of Over processing
What it is?
- Putting more effort, value into the product than it's cost valued by customer.
- Such as unnecessarily of tolerance such as too tight, over clean or over polishing beyond the requirement.
- No standardization of best technique can lead to over processing.
- Unclear specification of the product.
- Unclear quality standard requirement.
- Again 5S can be use in reducing or eliminating over processing.
- Implement SOP with proper pictures on how the processing work, this is visual guided standard.
- Another visual guided is by video, can be use to guide operator to work accordingly.
- Regular OJT (On Job Training), this is to instill operator knowledge of the work and upgrading skills.
- Regular review the design of the product with value engineering or value analysis to identify opportunity of improvement.
By reducing waiting you will improve the productivity of your workers and reduce your operating costs and eventually increase operating profit margin.
If you have more idea why not drops us in comment - Thanks!
Waste No. 4 - Waste due to Waiting too long
Nov 29, 2020Waste No. 4 - Waste of Waiting
What it is?
- It is the act of doing nothing by stood there for long period of time waiting for a previous step in the process.
- Operator waiting for the product complete while the machine in running.
- Waiting was created by poor machine maintenance.
- Waiting existed by long changeover.
- Waiting created by unreliable process or many defects.
- Improving machine reliability and quality by using Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) and quality tools.
- Reducing overproduction and inventory to minimize transport and movement between and within cells.
- Develop a standard operating procedure to ensure the process has standardize operating and clear instruction for operation.
- Use visual methods of planning to give details of planning work.
- Regular daily group meetings to ensure that everyone is clear what is required for the day.
By reducing waiting you will improve the productivity of your workers and reduce your operating costs and eventually increase operating profit margin.
If you have more idea why not drops us in comment - Thanks!
Waste No. 3 - Waste of Motion
Nov 28, 2020
Today we continue with the 7 Waste of Lean Manufacturing series.
Waste No. 3 - Waste of Motion
What it is?
- A process that has step that is not value adding, moving is not necessarily working existed.
- Too many motions or steps may cause by poor layout of the process.
- Poor design of process of transferring from one process to another process.
- Poor workplace organization.
- Large batch sizes.
How you over come it?
- Look back at each of your process and look for any job that burden the operator, this should be minimize.
- Implement 5S into each of your process to look for any struggle area and improve using 5S methodology.
- Develop a standard operating procedure to ensure the process has standardize operating.
- Implement Single minute exchange tool (SMED) to remove wasteful motion in steps.
- Regular check the processes for any new waste created.
This may help your process to overcome waste of motion, the waste No.3 in Lean manufacturing.
If you have more idea why not drops us in comment - Thanks!
Waste No. 2 - Excessive of Inventory
Nov 27, 2020Waste No. 2 - Excessive of Inventory
What it is?
- Inventory consists of your excess of Raw Material, excess of Work in Progress (WIP), Finished Goods.
- Unnecessary inventory stock up before and after in a process.
- Lack of balance in work flow.
- Failure to practices first in and first out.
- Incapable processes, long changeover time and didn't follow procedure.
How you over come it?
- Setup flow of product at the pull of customer
- Practice JIT (Just In Time).
- Implement Kanban system, used to help ensure balance the processes and prevent the build up of inventory.
- Re-layout processes to achieve continuously flows.
- Optimize your machine to be efficient and consistent output.
If you have more idea why not drops us in comment.
Sharing is Caring! Thanks!
Waste No. 1 of Lean - Overproduction
Nov 26, 2020
7 Waste of Lean Manufacturing series.
Waste No. 1 - Overproduction
Below is some example of how overproduction can happen in any of manufacturer process. So what overproduction it is?
- Making products in too great a quantity.
- Unreliable processes.
- Unstable schedule.
- Inaccurate of forecast.
- Inaccurate information and not actual demand.
How you over come it?
- Practice JIT (Just In Time)
- Work with supplier to implement Just In time.
- Steam line your process that provide fast output.
- Work with customer on the actual demand of product.
- Optimize your machine to be efficient and consistent output.
This may help your process to overcome overproduction, the waste No.1 in Lean manufacturing.