SPC

Defects must be identified during manufacturing to prevent defective products. Inspection is a strategy that a company uses to prevent defects before products reach to customers. However, inspections require cost to implement and cannot catch all issues. Performing 100% inspection is often impractical because this requires significant resources or can damage items.

Statistical Process Control (SPC) is a technique that the manufacturing industry uses to monitor process stability and present trends to identify and address problems. Some of the SPC benefits are:

1. Clear representation of the data in a Chart format, giving an easy to see trend over time, across defined factors, for example, manufacturing machine, materials, tool, shift.
2. Helps prevent defective products by supplementing inspection with statistical analysis.
3. Highlight when a process is in or out of control, flagging up the need for improvement using data analysis over time.
4. Highlight data entry issues, either with measuring gauges or user error where manually entered, where the measurements are outside the expected range.

SPC is used as a supplementary quality control method in conjunction with inspection. The process involves gathering samples and using statistical analysis to gain insights into the overall process. SPC can be more effective when samples are collected during production processes to ensure that operations are proceeding as intended.

When used properly, SPC can identify potential issues before significantly impacting the manufacturing process, allowing for timely corrections before major issues arise.