Industry
Metallurgy, Manufacturing
About
Heat Treating Services Corporation of America is a provider of metallurgical heat treating services such as casting and forging to automotive, rail, agriculture, energy and military industries. Their 5 plants provide 24-hour production coverage.
The company holds quality management certifications ISO 9001:2015 and IATF 16949:2016.
Location
Michigan, United States
Quality Assurance: a priority in the manufacturing process
Heat Treating Services Corporation of America provides metallurgy and heat treating services to transport, agriculture, energy and military industries, with 5 manufacturing facilities working around the clock.
High precision and word-class quality are key business priorities, therefore quality control is at the heart of the manufacturing process. The Quality Assurance team utilize advanced measuring and testing equipment tools for prediction, control, monitoring and prevention – aiming to control all aspects of the manufacturing process and achieve 100% conformance.
The challenge of seeing trends with paper-based quality checks
The QA team manage a quality process that includes multiple daily checks of production and machinery, across all locations and changing shifts. Before implementing GoAudits, the team conducted most of these checks on paper and spreadsheets, which made it challenging to see trends and fix issues before they cause gross non-conformances.
Katie Day, Quality Assurance and Metallurgy Manager at Heat Treating Services, says: “Before GoAudits we were paper based and all analysis was manual. It involved looking through a stack of papers, entering data in spreadsheets and hoping you could pick out a trend.”
"We can now easily see trends and missing audits, we have gained clarity and reduced our paper usage"
Production operators now use checklists on mobile devices for various checks in the manufacturing process, equipment and facilities. For example, this includes furnace and other machinery settings, special instructions, cleaning and safety checks.
The supervising team also use GoAudits as part of the layered audit process, including higher-level plant and manufacturing process checks. After testing the solution, the team even expanded the use of GoAudits to various health and safety checks and audits.
The real-time digital communication has helped put everyone on the same page: operators, supervisors and the Quality Assurance team. Katie explains: “The operators are now able to take pictures of non-conformances, so the QA team see the non-conformance as the operator does. This has helped with clarity and improved communication. The broadcast feature in particular has been very helpful: we can notify the plant floor that there is a new audit form to download onto their devices.”
Describing other benefits of digitizing quality checks with GoAudits, Katie says: “GoAudits significantly reduced our paper usage. Having digitized our analysis we can now easily see trends, which previously we weren’t looking for, except in gross cases. Now we’re able to get ahead of the trends before they become a gross non-conformance.”
GoAudits dashboards and reports with historical overview allow to see performance over time, across shifts and locations. Katie gives an example: “Now we can easily see missing audits. That is something that previously would have taken a month after the fact.”
"Digitising is the biggest no-brainer for our quality system over the past couple of years"
Summarizing the benefits of GoAudits for the operations, Katie says: “Digitizing our audits was the biggest no-brainer for our quality system in the past couple of years. No need to enter data into spreadsheets, the clarity we have gained – this has been a game changer!”
GoAudits teams always strive to provide a personalized and responsive customer service, as well as accommodate change requests where possible, which the Heat Treating Services team particularly appreciated.
“Customer support with GoAudits is phenomenal”, Katie describes her experience. “When we have a suggestion for improvement or a request for help, the GoAudits support team is right there with an answer or an improvement. Often times it takes less than a week for improvements to be made.”
For more information on GoAudits and checklists for manufacturing, click here.
Digitizing our audits was the biggest no-brainer for our quality system in the past couple of years.
With GoAudits we’re able to get ahead of the trends before they become a gross non-conformance. No need to enter data into spreadsheets, the clarity we have gained – this has been a game changer!
Katie Day
Quality Assurance and Metallurgy Manager
Heat Treating Services Corporation of America
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