- Scaling from small beginnings to big growth
- Accommodating high complexity projects
- Standardizing & automating quality processes
The Challenges
The Solution
JD Machine selected High QA 360 software as their all-in-one integrated quality management software solution.
Who is JD Machine?
Founded in 1979, JD Machine Corp, is a world-class manufacturer of high value machined parts, sheet metal components and complex assemblies. Utilizing advanced technologies, JD Machine achieves an amazingly high level of component parts throughput for medium- to high-complexity production runs. Serving the aerospace, defense, medical, energy and commercial industries their capabilities include precision CNC machining, sheet metal fabrication, assembly testing and more. To learn more visit https://jdmachine.com.
From Small Beginnings to Big Job Shop
Nestled in the mountains of Ogden, Utah, JD Machine started with humble beginnings in 1979 as a mom & pop shop by J. Don Wardle and his wife in a 2,500 square foot room – a former poultry processing plant.
With only 1 manual mill and 1 lathe, Don got the business off the ground and established a customer base. His son, Matt Wardle, took over the ownership in 1992. Working together with his father, the transition from generation to generation went well.
”I’m a big believer in structure and utilizing tools, and that’s why we went looking for High QA’s software.
Matt Wardle, President & CEO, JD Machine Corp.
Big growth is not an easy task, however. Matt saw that the business needed to diversify into other industries to grow. He also felt strongly that implementing and utilizing key systems would be a critical aspect to accomplish scalable growth while maintaining the things that are important to customers – cost, quality, and delivery.
The Need for a Quality Management System (QMS)
A Quality Management System (QMS) was one of the first key systems JD Machine sought to put in place – primarily because of the Automotive work they had taken on and thus needed to satisfy the industry requirements that came with it.
Matt felt the shop needed to spend less time checking parts and more time making sure parts are efficiently run with high quality.
”High QA’s Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is really impressive!
Matt Wardle, President & CEO, JD Machine Corp.
As avid practitioners of Lean Principals, JD also wanted to keep overhead low. To meet such requirements of customer contracts, APQP, providing PPAPs, SPC, internal inspections etc. (while ensuring a high level of quality) it was decided that a QMS was the answer.
The search began for a system that could manage JD Machine’s manual inspection data collection. After thorough investigation, JD Machine selected High QA 360 software as their all-in-one integrated Quality Management Software.
In a very short time, High QA transformed JD Machine’s quality process.
JD Machine Today
Today, JD Machine Corp. employs over 180 people and occupies a 70,000 square ft facility – with room for expansion! As one of Utah’s 100 fastest growing companies, it is the esteemed recipient of awards from the Utah Manufacturer’s Association, National Tooling and Machining Association, the United States Small Business Association, NASA, Modern Machine Shop, and others.
To learn more, visit jdmachine.com.
”Quality Management Systems are just good business.
Matt Wardle, President & CEO, JD Machine Corp.
The Evolution of Quality for JD Machine
The Old Way
Without High QA 360 Software
- Quality Engineering (QE) created check sheets in Excel
- QE cleaned check sheets MANUALLY
- Check sheets filled out during manufacturing process
- Errors would populate in multiple locations
- Missing documentation
- Incomplete inspection reports
- Wasted time
- AS9102’s manually filled out
- Final inspection extremely time consuming
The New Way
With High QA 360 Software
- Structured
- Automated
- Centralized process
- Scalable
- No manual documentation
- No Excel!
- Identified process flow
- No bottlenecks
- Stores all quality plans, data, and reports in an integrated centralized database
- User-friendly reporting
- Meets AS9102 requirements
- Allows for higher throughput and better data internally & externally
- Accountability system
- Intelligent software
Listen to the On-Demand Webinar
as Matt Wardle Shares JD Machine’s Quality 4.0 Journey
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The Challenges
- Scaling the shop up from Industry 2.0 to Industry/Quality 4.0
- Meeting OEM and customer quality requirements
- Automating the creation of documents and reporting
- Satisfying customer’s document submission requirements
The Solution
Chick Machine selected High QA’s Inspection Manager as their all-in-one integrated quality management software solution.
Who is Chick Machine
Chick Machine, located in a 35,000 square ft facility in Western Pennsylvania, is a single source supplier of precision products with complete in-house machining, surface finishing, and prototyping. With decades of experience working within highly specialized markets and a commitment to continuous improvement, their custom solutions help turn concepts into manufacturable products. To learn more visit https://chickmachine.com.
The Need for a Manufacturing Quality Management Solution
When Bob Petrini, President of Chick Machine, took over the business, his top priority was to not only maintain the current status-quo, but to exceed it.
As he settled in, Bob quickly realized that one area in particular required attention – the Quality process. Chick Machine had full capability to machine the parts, inspect the parts; but what was lacking was in automation and documentation.
”High QA Inspection Manager gives us the ability for higher throughput and better data both for us internally and for our customers.
Bob Petrini - President
Not only that, but parts were piling up. Bottlenecks were occurring. The team was being overworked, and tougher demands from customers and stringent Aerospace industry requirements, specifically around new product introductions, were making the situation worse.
Looking deeper into the process only uncovered additional problems. Quality documentation (mostly hand-written) was sometimes completed incorrectly and at the wrong time. The work was collected by final quality at the end of the process which equated to many parts having to be re-checked manually. Followed by hundreds of pages of pdf prints to summarize that were not saved and clearly were not customer friendly.
A process change needed to happen and happen fast!
Evaluating Manufacturing Quality Management Solutions
It was time to incorporate the help of a quality management software to automate and document the numerous tasks. With several solutions available on the market, the search began for key differentiators.
The auto-ballooning and automatic bill of characteristics features of High QA’s Inspection Manager first caught the attention of Chick’s Quality staff. The realization that the High QA solution was also fully integrated and could give immediate feedback – making it very user-friendly, fast and gave the ability to eliminate human errors, were the determining factors to move forward with High QA Inspection Manager.
Jacob Schurer, Quality Manager, at Chick Machine says “As a Quality & Process Engineer at previous employers, I had seen similar software solutions. The main difference is that those software solutions would auto-balloon and have similar technology but they were still separated and divorced from other processes – such as data aggregation, manufacturing dimensions & tolerances or engineering, APQP etc. This separation made things slow, details would get missed. When I joined Chick Machine, I saw how integrated everything was using High QA, it is a true database solution. We are able to build an advanced quality plan all within High QA,”
Listen to Jacob’s audio clip here: Q&A: Why should you choose High QA over other products? | High QA
”Inspection Manager enables us to drive quality to the machine seamlessly and deliver process control.
Jacob Schurer - Quality Manager
Better Quality with High QA
The move to High QA for quality not only gave Chick Machine automation but took the company from a de-centralized process to a centralized process.
Operating in a centralized environment means that they can now make it once – and make it well. Templates and documentation can be stored and re-used and also shared dynamically with team members or customers.
High QA is more than a product for Chick Machine, it is a culture. Every release production order at Chick goes through a High QA planning process that includes ballooned prints, bill of characteristics, verified tolerances, defined methods of measurement and a complete list of in-house gauges. Next is defining the frequency, and the job is released to the floor. Inspection Manager enables the machinist to measure and input the data. Driving quality to the machine.
The Evolution of Quality for Chick Machine
The Old Way
Manual, Paper-based, Excel Spreadsheets
- Bottlenecks
- Lacked inspection planning, control over measurement & data
- Machinists had too much autonomy for how and what to measure
- Measurements kept in islands of data
- No aggregate to identify trends, min & max, key metrics
- Inconsistent dimension labeling
- Inspection data not always captured in-process (often in final inspection phase)
- Hand-written or Excel
- Not scalable
- Error-prone
- Dimensional reports were a stand-alone project
- No templates to re-use
- De-centralized process
The New Way
Automated with High QA Inspection Manager
- Automation
- Centralized process
- Scalable
- No time wasted interpreting and cross-referencing
- No hand-written documentation
- No Excel!
- Standardized feature naming
- Large volumes of measurements do not require huge time investments
- No bottlenecks
- Stores all quality plans, data and reports in an integrated centralized database
- Meet AS9102 requirements
- Ability for higher throughput and better data internally & externally
- Happy customers!
Listen to the full Chick Machine Quality 4.0 story in this on-demand webinar:
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HyPro Incorporated
The Customer's Business
Improving Management Processes Through the use of Quality Software
HyPro Inc. is a provider of machined components and assembly solutions. Hypro Inc.’s goal was to improve its quality management processes, ranging from ballooning, GD&T recognition, through inspection planning, CMM and inspected data collection and final documentation and reporting. As such, it contacted HighQA, the software company behind the Inspection Manager Software, and after conducting a professional due-diligence, it decided to join High QA’s community of customers.
Improving Management Processes Through the use of Quality Software
While using a different software product, HyPro Inc. realized they needed to make a change. They felt staff still spent too much time on manual tasks that could be automated, and the then current software didn’t lead HyPro Inc. to adopt new and better practices.
To share one example, says Tyler Schildt, Hypro Inc. lead quality engineer, we do a lot of “big things.” It can be more than a thousand dimensions and GD&T characteristics. Ballooning took so much time that the CMM team already completed their inspection prior to having the ballooned plan shared with them. Productivity and internal alignment didn’t improve much with the software and HyPro Inc. was looking to “do things different.”
”With the help of HighQA and the Inspection Manager software, we were able to accomplish all the above and more. As we now experience higher demand, we are able to accommodate it with the current staff and deliver better quality products on time. We are excited about the growth possibilities partnering with High QA.
Tyler Schildt - Lead QA Engineer
The Implementation
How deploying a modern Quality 4.0 software applications “completely changed our business,” as told by Tyler Schildt, Hypro Inc. lead quality engineer.
Call it an expert system, or artificial intelligence—we looked for software that with one-click, can scan/OCR balloon and extract, with high accuracy, all the dimensions and characteristics from a 2D drawing.
Database-driven and strong IT infrastructure—we work in collaboration with seven different facilities, so we need all of the data to reside in one place and be accessed by 20-30 staff concurrently. We need it to be backed up daily to our remote back up location.
”With the Inspection Manager Software, HyPro Inc. tested and confirmed that complex tasks that took previously five days to accomplish, can be done now in half a day to a day.
Tyler Schildt - Lead QA Engineer
Performance should be optimized—trying a cloud solution did demonstrate some benefits on the IT side, but not when it comes to performance. If you are working on a loaded drawing and make one simple mistake, it can cost you 15 minutes waiting for the screen to refresh. We wanted a more robust and sophisticated architecture that will allow us the best of both.
Streamline our quality management process—We wanted to have the CMM inspection driven by an inspection plan that was initiated by the software, so all ballooned characteristics are aligned. Once we have the collected data, we can create all the documentation and reporting (i.e. PPAP) in a click of a button and re-run it as many times we need.
Usability and level of service—being in the 21st century, we want software that is highly intuitive and usable, one that takes you through your work activities in a natural way. The ability to self-train and access a highly responsive service support on the vendor side was a big plus for us.
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National Oilwell Varco | NOV Rig Systems
The Customer's Business
NOV Rig systems has a long history of manufacturing advanced drilling equipment packages. It constantly working to solve operational challenges, evolve its products, minimize the customer risk and improve the performance of drilling operations around the world.
NOV creates various parts for the Oil and Gas drilling equipment and each part’s drawing contains hundreds (300-400) of dimensions and GD&T items. As its business is continuously growing, few years ago NOV engaged with an Inspection software vendor to improve its in-house Quality Manufacturing productivity and deployed their product. While some automation was gained, NOV continued to face major challenges even after deploying that software. This challenges prevented NOV from evolving to the next level of productivity and achieving its operational goals of Quality Manufacturing.
”Working with Inspection Manager has enabled us to streamline our methods of inspection from First Article to production Runs. It has transformed our inspection business process, it has improved our quality, productivity and efficiency.
Sergio Zavala - Inspection Supervisor, NOV Rig Systems
The Need for a Solution
The following are some of the key challenges NOV still encountered even-though it was already using a dedicated software product. Some of the challenges were:
- Ballooning OCR was slow and read the dimensions one at a time, no automated GD&T extraction.
- No database attached, only saving things in the file system. This made searches, reporting and access to the information not intuitive and slow. Especially the consolidation of documentation per project was taking a long time and was error prone.
- Key functions such as re-numbering and managing revisions were not strong enough.
The Decision Process
NOV Rig Systems was looking around for an automated, more advanced, solution and found HighQA with its product “Inspection Manager”. After a 45 minutes web session it was clear to the team (quality, inspection and manufacturing staff) that the potential in this product can improve on the current challenges. After additional one month of having a trial version locally installed and a short training, the team at NOV concluded to adopt the Inspection Manager product and partner with HighQA.
During their trial month and decision making process the team at NOV looked specifically for the following things:
- How long HighQA in business and the maturity of the Inspection manager software (coming up now on version 4.5 in 2017)
- Software ease-of-use and intuitive navigation
- Advanced level of seamless, unattended, automation (such as reading automatically CMM inspection results from a network folder)
- Inter-operability with other software packages (SPC, ERP, etc.)
- Overall productivity increase (between full OCR, automation and good data schema that supports NOV’s business processes)
- Partnership with HighQA as a vendor – responsiveness, technical support team knowledge, ease of implementation
- HighQA vision and road map evolving to become a leader in the Quality Manufacturing software and longer term bringing more stake holders into the loop with a supply chain software platform
The Implementation
The overall on-boarding process and experience was very good. Within 30 days the system was up and running, staff were trained, manufacturing and inspection were fully in alignment, the software was installed on the server with a centralized database (client/server configuration) and adoption was smooth.
Using a floating license configuration allows multiple users to access the software and the overall productivity increased significantly. The software is functioning above and beyond and the team at HighQA is highly responsive to various enhancements requests as well.
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