In 2015, GrayTech International was looking for ways to get more efficient so they could take on more business and grow. Doug Murillo, the Quality Engineer, saw that their manual process for creating inspection plans was too slow. It could take up to two days from getting a new order to create all the necessary paperwork before beginning manufacturing. Doug found InspectionXpert, and now when a new job comes in, he can balloon the part drawing and create in-process check sheets and FAIRs in less than half a day. Now GrayTech is able to get jobs to the shop floor faster, and as a result, their business has grown.
Challenge
When Doug Murillo started at GrayTech, they were manually creating all their inspection plans and reports. Part drawings could have anywhere from 10-400 characteristics, and for complex drawings it would take hours just to manually balloon the part drawing. “If you missed a characteristic, your sequencing of balloons would be off and you’d have to start over.” After ballooning, Doug had to type characteristic data into in-process check sheets, then copy and paste most of the same information into FAIRs and other reports for customers.
Engineering would then mark-up part drawings with colors for operations, but updating the ballooned part drawing with the info from engineering was slow and time-consuming. There was a lot of checking and re-checking at each step since all the characteristic information from the part drawings was typed in manually. For a new part, it would take a couple of days to prepare all the documents before it could be manufactured, and FAIRs could take up to 3 days. Doug knew that there had to be a better, faster way to create a control plan, check sheets, and inspection reports.
How InspectionXpert Helped
As a high-mix, low-volume shop with new parts all the time, Doug’s main goal was to make planning and reporting more efficient, so that they could get jobs to the shop floor faster. “We chose InspectionXpert because it was easy to implement. There are training videos online, and we are able to customize reports without having to pay for services.”
With InspectionXpert, Doug has seen huge time savings in ballooning, planning, and reporting. Doug has imported Excel inspection reports from his customers into InspectionXpert to create his own library of custom reports. Now he can choose which report to export to, and export the characteristic information from a part to in-process check sheets for his shop floor, a First Article Inspection Report, and more. “What used to take 4-5 hours now takes less than 2 hours, and we can get full FAIRs done in less than half a day.”
Results
InspectionXpert has been part of an evolution of the entire quality process at GrayTech. Doug has standardized the process for all incoming parts, and as old parts are made again, they are updating to their new standard of color-coding the part drawings with the operation to match their engineering drawing and in-process check sheets. Doug now has more time to help customers and improve other processes around the shop. For GrayTech, finding efficiency in their ballooning, planning, and reporting has enabled their continued growth.
About: GrayTech International specializes in high precision machining of component parts for the Medical, Aerospace, and Power Generation industries.
Company Size: 40
Location: Cleveland, Ohio
