How Bad Product Design Leads to Many Quality Issues

I had an attention-grabbing dialogue just a few days in the past. It made me understand most individuals see merchandise of clearly poor high quality and assume the problems come from manufacturing, whereas, in truth, they most frequently come from unhealthy product design! Let’s see why right here…

Let’s take an instance of high quality points brought on by poor product design

Just lately, an importer advised us he was hesitating between two suppliers. Every of these suppliers produces the identical sort of electro-mechanical product (I can’t be particular right here).

One of many two suppliers’ merchandise was “of low high quality”, the importer advised us, based mostly on opinions he noticed on-line:

• The gadgets labored just a few instances after which stopped working altogether.
• It appears one thing is burning contained in the product when it’s working, and it produces a foul scent.
• The system is a bit noisy when it’s working.

He assumed all of it got here from poor workmanship (when the manufacturing facility put collectively the product), and he assumed one way or the other it may be significantly better within the subsequent order.

Impossible.

As our workforce identified, these points are typical of a poorly designed product:

• The product isn’t sturdy, and the stress of regular use is sufficient to make it fail early in its life. The prototypes have been most likely not despatched for accelerated reliability testing, to seek out their weaknesses and handle them.
• {An electrical} element might be under-rated, and that’s what results in burning smells. The R&D workforce most likely didn’t work intently with the purchaser, to ensure the correct element was specified within the BOM.
• Low cost mechanical components (most likely bearings) trigger the noise. Once more, low cost parts have been picked, and value/efficiency testing was most likely not finished.

That’s not an remoted case. Many investigations of product failures result in the identical conclusion. Unhealthy product design results in high quality and reliability points.

Why are so many merchandise poorly designed?

There’s a clear sample.

When a purchaser works with a Chinese language producer and instructs them to repeat an present product, the client usually says “make some samples which can be comparable, together with your native parts, and right here is how one can make it look completely different”.

Or, typically, a Chinese language firm takes the initiative to repeat a profitable product. (See this instance of copycat.)

In these circumstances, the producer goes straight to placing a prototype collectively, with out a lot thought of good design practices, strategic sourcing (selecting the correct parts and the correct suppliers), or reliability testing (confirming the product won’t fail too simply or too early).

Jo Van Landeghem, who has deep expertise with product security, analyzed the causes of security incidents that led to recollects and wrote:

Typically these incidents are brought on by:

• A poor understanding of design-related danger
• Poor element high quality utilization/choice
• Poor high quality workmanship when the merchandise are being manufactured
• A poor mixture of high quality parts mixed with inappropriate workmanship

The function of product design

If the design engineers are usually not given aims associated to high quality and security, and if their prototypes are usually not examined appropriately, just about something is feasible!

I wrote about it at size in Why Design Defects Are Behind Many High quality/Security Points.

And we shot a video on DFQ (design for high quality) lately:

Additionally, when designing electro-mechanical merchandise, maintaining reliability in thoughts is sort of essential. I defined it earlier than in Utilizing Reliability Engineering for Designing a Extra Sturdy Product.

As normal MIL-STD-785B put it:

Keep away from “design deficiencies” and “weak elements”, not simply “workmanship defects”!

The function of procurement

There’s numerous discuss concerning the function of design engineers, however selecting the correct supplies & parts from the correct suppliers can also be fairly essential.

We shot a video on the subject of procurement for X, exhibiting just a few examples:

Conclusion

Product design. Sourcing & procurement. Course of design and manufacturing. Every of them might be the trigger for critical high quality points, reliability points, AND issues of safety.

If, as a purchaser, you possibly can establish the reason for an issue, you may make significantly better selections. Transferring your manufacturing to a brand new manufacturing facility might not be the answer.

Get professional assist to enhance YOUR product high quality from suppliers in China or Vietnam. Learn: High quality Assurance In China Or Vietnam For Newbies

Obtain your free copy of Sofeast’s eBook and study the widespread traps new importers from China or Vietnam fall into, and how one can keep away from or overcome them in an effort to get the absolute best manufacturing outcomes. It additionally outlines a confirmed high quality assurance technique you could comply with in an effort to have higher management over your product high quality, protecting:

• Discovering Appropriate Suppliers
• Defining your Necessities earlier than Manufacturing Begins
• Don’t Skip the New Product Introduction Course of
• Common High quality Inspections (Belief however Confirm)
• Tying Funds to High quality Approvals

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