Software for Visible Quality


Making Quality Visible
Your anodize and plating operators don’t understand Cpk. Your chemists don’t have time to hang out in production guarding untested tanks. Your production managers could use some help knowing which jobs are due to ship today and whether your processing line is ready to process them. Anoplex Displays are the solution. Anoplex Displays translate quality statistics, job status, and process tank status into a simple red-light, green-light format and put them on large-screen HDTV monitors visible to your production personnel, your auditors and your customers. Anoplex Displays will help you to improve quality, improve internal communication, impress auditors, and increase revenue.
Anoplex ChemScreen
After using ChemTrak for a few months, Arnold’s Metal Finishing wanted a way to communicate tank condition to production and to management. Jeffrey Lewis, Quality Manager at Arnold’s, called on Anoplex for help. With electroless nickel baths, anodize baths, many cleaners, many etch baths, and many colored dye baths on the processing floor, it takes a while for the chemistry lab to get the daily testing done. With Nadcap accreditation in his sights, Jeffrey wanted the plating and anodizing operators to know the condition of every tank on the line before starting any jobs.
Today, Arnold’s has ChemScreen running in the chemistry lab and in production. They also have a 42-inch Vizio HDTV in the main conference room to help with sales presentations: nothing impresses customers and auditors more than real time statistics that evidence a commitment to quality. The 40 inch Sony Bravia 40BX420 in the photo is showing the QCScreen display. The monitor cost is ~$600, which easily covered by saving one or two reworked jobs; with ChemScreen you will save a lot more rework than that. The screen in the photo shows that dissolved aluminum in the Anodize II tank has not yet been tested, so the tank is showing a red light. Also, the last Hypo test on the ENi bath was slightly below the lower control limit so that tank is showing a yellow light. It takes about 2 minutes for the ChemScreen program to cycle through 50 process tanks showing rolling control charts and traffic lights for each tank. Each tank’s control chart remains on-screen for about 20 seconds, and watch lists of red light and yellow light tanks are maintained as the display is updated. Since ChemScreen works from the ChemTrak database, once a tank has been tested and adjusted it will be dropped from the watch lists, and its control chart will be updated in minutes.
Anoplex JobScreen
The Anoplex JobScreen lines your jobs up like an airport departure screen: those scheduled to ship today are shown with red highlighted due dates at the top of the list, and the jobs scheduled for later shipment follow. JobScreen also queries the ChemScreen database to determine the status of all tanks used to process each job, and if any tank used in the job process is due to be tested or is out of specification, the tank light will be red on that job row. If any tank used in the job process has a most recent test outside of control limits, the tank light will be yellow on that job row.
The 40 inch HDTV in the photo is showing the JobScreen display. The screen in the photo shows two jobs with one or more tanks that are overdue for testing: these jobs are scheduled for shipment in four days. A job (100063) is scheduled for shipment tomorrow and has a tank that tested outside of its control range. JobScreen can be a valuable addition to TestTrak after TestTrak has been used for a few weeks to receive jobs. After you put a JobScreen HDTV in production and/or the chemistry lab, you will be amazed at how your production personnel will start working with your chemistry personnel to get tanks tested and adjusted to enable job processing. You will also be amazed at the quality improvement and rework reduction possible when all jobs are processed through tanks that are tested and ready to be used.
Coming Soon: Anoplex QCScreen
Using TestTrak’s system for coding DMRs and recording due dates, the QCScreen displays first-pass yield, on-time delivery and continuously updating Pareto charts of DMR results from TestTrak. Like the other Displays, QCScreen keeps your personnel aware of key operating indicators and motivates the team to work together to achieve on-time delivery goals, yield goals, and a zero-defect culture. Anoplex QCScreen is an ideal way to show your commitment to continuous improvement to employees, customers and auditors.
To use the QCScreen effectively, the TestTrak DMR system must be properly initialized with your custom codes and steps, and you should have been using TestTrak for at least one month. QCScreen is in beta testing and will be available before year end.