Inhaltsübersicht
- 1 Production quality assurance: a comprehensive overview
- 2 Then it is worth taking a look at quality assurance in your own company.
- 3 Methods and procedures for quality assurance in production
- 4 Importance of quality assurance for companies, especially SMEs
- 5 Legal framework in Germany
- 6 Quality assurance today: Digitize the QA process!
- 7 Achieving quality goals with digital work instructions
- 8 Conclusion: Ensuring quality, achieving goals
- 9 FAQ on quality assurance in production
Production quality assurance: a comprehensive overview
High quality is no coincidence, but the result of careful planning, consistent analysis and continuous improvement: these aspects are part of the quality assurance that every production facility should have. Industry 4.0 is increasingly relying on digitally supported methods to ensure the quality of its own production.
Do you need more efficiency and structure in your quality assurance? Do you want to know how digital tools can help with quality control or quality assurance and what the differences are between quality assurance and quality control?
Then we recommend the following article: We take a closer look at the topic of quality assurance in production.
Definition of quality assurance
Do you want to avoid errors instead of discovering them after production and thus keep production quality at a high level? Or raise the existing level to a new level?
Then it is worth taking a look at quality assurance in your own company.
It is a central component of production and affects all processes along the value chain. Production and assembly errors cost time and money, which good quality management can save. Companies use different methods to ensure compliance with specified quality requirements.
Within quality management, quality assurance is a sub-aspect alongside quality planning, quality control and quality monitoring.
Quality assurance includes all systematic and planned measures, both organizational and technical, aimed at maintaining and improving the quality of products and services.
Quality assurance is not only a prerequisite for smooth production, but also contributes to safety and efficiency in companies.
Quality assurance methods should accompany the entire production process. In this way, errors can be avoided, necessary reworking reduced and a quality status once achieved can be maintained in the long term.
Quality assurance tasks
What exactly do we do in quality assurance? First of all, systematic testing concepts are required for production processes: Defining, planning and implementing these is the basis of quality assurance in the company. Customer-specific adaptations of existing inspection concepts are also often necessary.
The monitoring of all workflows and processes as well as the various monitoring measures themselves are also part of quality assurance.
Quality assurance measures and objectives should be communicated to the team in regular further education and training courses.
Last but not least, the measures taken for quality assurance are consistently documented in order to evaluate results and discover optimization potential.
Continuous improvement processes, or CIP for short, are suitable for achieving a long-term increase in quality.
Summarized at a glance
Quality assurance
- creates and implements test concepts for production processes
- Monitors processes
- also monitors the necessary checks itself
- ensures, for example, that test equipment is calibrated and ready for use
- documents measures and their results
- promotes CIP
- analyzes customer feedback, insofar as it is quality-related
- ensures compliance with legal and industry-typical quality standards.
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Methods and procedures for quality assurance in production
Industrial production does not just begin with manufacturing. Quality assurance accompanies the entire manufacturing process, from initial planning to the finished packaged product. The methods used in modern quality assurance for Industry 4.0 are correspondingly diverse.
FMEA in quality management
You can obtain qualitative information on possible sources of error in the production process with the failure mode and effects analysis, also known as impact analysis or FMEA for short.
The quality assurance method known as Failure Mode and Effects Analysis is used to identify potential sources of error in production processes and evaluate their effects, particularly during the development phase. This allows preventive measures to be taken to avoid quality defects.
This process is frequently used by car manufacturers and their suppliers, in the aerospace industry and in other branches of industry. Different methods are used depending on the industry. DIN EN 60812 provides the legal framework for the functional capability of systems.
Statistical process control (SPC)
Another widely used method is statistical process control (SPC), which enables continuous monitoring of manufacturing processes by analyzing process data.
Quality characteristics are measured and statistically evaluated in order to identify possible deviations at an early stage and initiate countermeasures. Control charts are created that use the collected data to show trends that reveal deviations and anomalies. In this way, corrective measures can be created at an early stage and supported by data, especially with the help of digital tools that facilitate documentation and data collection.
Worker guidance
In times of staff shortages and dynamic developments in all markets, worker self-inspection is becoming increasingly important as a method of quality assurance. This method, also known as worker guidance, integrates quality inspection directly into the production process by having the employees themselves carry out inspections on the products they have manufactured. As a result, deviations are recognized immediately and corrections can be made directly.
Digital work instructions
Digital work instructions are not obvious at first glance, but they are extremely helpful in modern production environments. They ensure that production processes are carried out uniformly and error-free by providing clear and standardized instructions. In digital form, they can also be flexibly updated and adapted to changing requirements.
Importance of quality assurance for companies, especially SMEs
Quality assurance is of central importance for companies of all sizes, but especially for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). While large corporations have extensive quality assurance resources at their disposal, SMEs often have to operate with limited capacities. Nevertheless, they benefit considerably from well-implemented quality assurance processes.
Consistent quality control helps to minimize production errors and thus reduce costs for rework or rejects. In addition, high product quality increases customer satisfaction and strengthens a company’s competitiveness in the long term. Quality standards are not only important for the smooth running of production, but also for building a positive brand image, which is reflected in greater customer loyalty and a better market position.
Legal framework in Germany
Quality assurance in production is subject to various legal regulations and standards in Germany.
The international standard ISO 9001 is one of the most important quality standards for management systems and specifies requirements for effective quality management. It is a prerequisite for doing business in many industries and helps companies to optimize their quality processes. DIN standards also play a decisive role, as they define specific quality requirements for different industrial sectors and thus ensure a uniform standard.
In its form valid since 2023, DIN EN ISO 9000 describes quality assurance as a “component of quality management that includes all organizational and technical measures that serve to prepare, accompany and test the creation and maintenance of a defined concept and execution quality of a product or service.”
Depending on the industry, there are laws that clearly regulate the quality assurance of certain products and services.
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Quality assurance today: Digitize the QA process!
The demands placed on modern production and its quality management are constantly increasing. Advancing technical developments, increasingly complex products and machines and, at the same time, the noticeable shortage of skilled workers everywhere present numerous challenges for quality management in production.
At the same time, technological developments are a great help in this dynamic field: digital tools considerably expand the possibilities for quality assurance in production.
Services and software products make it easier for companies to collect data for analysis and quality control, for example. Sophisticated products for worker guidance save personnel and time, while at the same time offering easy-to-integrate options for self-monitoring and data collection in the QA process.
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Digital work instructions and worker self-inspection: tepcon products for quality assurance in production
Faced with a wide range of challenges when trying to maintain their own product quality, our customers rely on digital tools that can be used to achieve quality assurance or even quality improvement.
Digitalization has become increasingly important in all areas of production, especially in the area of quality assurance. Requirements are growing in line with staff shortages and quality standards need to be maintained, if not improved. In this environment, quality assurance measures that can be implemented with digital applications are a sensible investment in all companies.
Achieving quality goals with digital work instructions
One way to meet the challenges of quality assurance is to use digital tools that create work instructions. They enable more efficient production processes with relatively low personnel costs. Errors can be reduced and product quality maintained at a high level.
By providing employees with clear and comprehensible instructions in real time, digital instructions ensure a consistently high quality of work processes and therefore also of the products that leave the production line.
Digital solutions have long since become a prerequisite for standardized and automated processes. The ability to make changes and updates centrally ensures that all employees always work with the latest instructions.
Worker self-inspection, also carried out digitally with the tepcon instructor, complements this approach by giving production workers more responsibility and thus enabling direct quality control within the production process.
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Conclusion: Ensuring quality, achieving goals
Modern production cannot do without continuous quality assurance measures. Meeting changing requirements while maintaining consistently high quality standards can be a real challenge.
Effective quality assurance and quality control measures are therefore a basic prerequisite for successful production: they optimize production processes, reduce errors and increase overall competitiveness.
Targeted methods such as FMEA, SPC, digital work instructions and worker self-inspection enable quality defects to be identified and rectified at an early stage. This not only leads to an improvement in production quality, but also to a long-term reduction in costs.
For companies of all sectors and sizes, quality assurance is a decisive factor in asserting themselves in an increasingly demanding market environment and achieving sustainable success.
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FAQ on quality assurance in production
What is the difference between quality assurance and quality control?
Quality control, on the other hand, refers to specific inspections of manufactured goods or services to identify and evaluate defects. It is a reactive system that performs downstream inspections to ensure that the manufactured products meet the required standards. While quality assurance involves preventive processes, quality control focuses on the final inspection of goods.
Why is quality assurance in production so important for companies?
Depending on the industry, processes must also meet certain legal requirements: In this case, achieving the goals of quality assurance is the basis of the company’s existence.
Well-planned quality assurance processes can minimize errors during production, which leads to a reduction in rejects, rework and complaints.
Digital systems such as our tepcon “instructor” play a decisive role in the constantly progressing industry.
The software supports quality assurance in implementing standardized processes, providing clear work instructions and thus reducing errors in production. The safety of machines and systems is also increased through structured quality assurance, which in turn contributes to increased efficiency.
What tasks does quality assurance involve in production?
With digital support, companies can further improve their quality assurance processes. The provision of digital work instructions, for example, enables employees to work precisely according to defined standards and reduce error rates.
What tips are there for successful quality assurance?
Successful quality assurance in production requires the continuous monitoring and optimization of processes.
Companies should define clear quality objectives and regularly train their employees to promote a high level of quality awareness.
Digital systems offer great support in the standardization of work processes and the documentation of test results.
It is also important to regularly analyze all relevant factors that influence quality.