In the manufacturing industry of today, there are more and more complaints about products that are being made with low-quality parts. Most of these companies that are using low-quality parts are doing this for one reason only, to ensure that the costs of production are kept as low as possible. However, they don’t always think about customer satisfaction, and why the quality of parts is key to it. Quality is important in all parts of the manufacturing industry, not only for a good product but for safety reasons too, that is why when handling these parts PPE is essential, from safety gloves by companies like Unigloves, to the equipment used. Altogether this can create a chain of quality, one drop in that can cause issues throughout the company’s products.
Here’s why it’s necessary for the manufacturing industry to spend more money on high quality parts, rather than trying to keep production costs as low as possible and also how to do it.
What does it mean to have high quality parts in the manufacturing industry?
When you are using only high quality parts in the manufacturing industry, it means that the product you are producing is going to be of high quality. The end result being that your clients and customers will be satisfied with the product that you sell.
This then means that they are willing to spend more money in purchasing your product, if they know that the parts that have been used are of high quality and long lasting. You will likely have higher production costs, but there shouldn’t be any problems with making more profit. Even if the product you are manufacturing is only a prototype, being produced for display at a promotional product show; keep quality as a priority, and it is sure to gain the necessary traction for further production. The moment that companies within the manufacturing industry start using low quality parts, their final product will not be durable and long lasting, and buyers will start to lose confidence in that specific company and/or product completely.
Reasons why most industries are going for the lower quality parts
Even if the manufacturing industries know the importance of using high quality parts, some are still going for those of low quality. They have many reasons for why companies end up using low quality parts. Here are some of the main reasons manufacturers opt for low quality:
- They are keeping the price of the product down. They assume that the lower the product’s price the more people are going to purchase the product. And, in a way this might be true. However, the moment that it is shown that the product is of low quality, the chances are that they will rather purchase the more expensive product.
- A lot of companies within the manufacturing industry simply fail to understand the cost of quality. If a defect of a low quality product reaches the customer before any staff find out about it, the costs will be a lot higher to fix the problem in comparison to if the defect was found before it was manufactured and sent off to be sold.
- A strong process discipline is not employed. Something changes throughout the manufacturing process and team cooperation is not had throughout all times, which has dire repercussions such as not producing high quality products.
Why it is important to have high quality parts?
If a company wants to minimize waste and operate at a high productivity level, excellent quality control is essential. In fact, it is often what makes a successful business that exceeds clients and customers expectations.
If you want to do business with a certain group of customers, then compliance with the recognized quality standards is a must. If you are part of a chain within the manufacturing industry, for example, the lead manufacturer can impose the consistent quality standards that you must follow. There are also industry quality standards that you must comply with when you operate in a sector such as with foods or chemicals that is regulated.
The reputation of a manufacturing company is also compromised the moment that they are using low quality parts for the production and manufacturing of their product. The moment that their reputation is compromised, customers will try other, similar products from competing companies that are higher in quality. Even, if this means that they end up paying a higher price.
Methods to use to ensure that high quality parts are being used
There are a couple of methods that can be used to ensure that high quality parts are being used. After all, improving quality in a meaningful and sustainable way should be high on the list of every goods manager working within the manufacturing industry. These methods are:
- Looking at quality from the customer’s perspective: The staff within every manufacturing company want their product to look better. But, do they know what better really means? Using the marketing and/or sales department of the company as a means to find out and understand your customers needs from their perspective. This additional reading and research will greatly help in knowing exactly what the customer feels and wants – ensuring you select the right high-quality parts to use. Through this way, you will not waste money researching and manufacturing better products that your customers don’t even want.
- Get to the root of the problem: You don’t want to focus on fixing the symptoms rather than the direct root of the problem. The teams within the manufacturing company should have the ability to turn off the problem in the manufacturing process. This will prevent the issue from returning and not just dealing with it temporarily. A great way of doing this is to add quality inspection steps. This will ensure no low quality parts sneak through the process.
- Team-based approach manufacturing process: For lasting change to occur when it comes to producing high quality parts, a team mindset needs to be adapted in the manufacturing processes. Through this a variety of opinions and attitudes will be gathered and an intelligent debate can occur, along with the data collected by the marketing/sales department about the customer’s perspective of the product.
The reassurance that your customers will be satisfied
At the end of the day, what companies within the manufacturing industry care about most is their bottom line. If a company does not do well financially, they cannot stay in business and will no longer be able to sell any products at all. However, it is also important for the manufacturing industry to realize that customers will not accept products with low quality parts.
To ensure customer satisfaction it’s necessary to manufacture high quality products with high quality parts and sell them at reasonable prices.
Using low quality parts might be cheaper, but is it worth the risk?