LORD MicroStrain Sensing Systems is a division of LORD Corporation. LORD MicroStrain makes mini sensors and systems that are used in a wide range of sensing solutions including inertial measurement systems, micro-displacement transducers, wireless sensor networks and energy harvesting technologies. Their sensors have won numerous awards by being both innovative and responsive to their customer's unique requirements.
Manual Quality Processes Lack Visibility into Issues
LORD MicroStrain has been using the Empower PLM system to manage their parts, bill of materials (BOMs) and engineering change/ECO information since 2007. The company realized positive business benefits managing their design processes with Empower PLM and saw an opportunity to expand that success by leveraging the quality management capabilities of the system.
The company did not previously have automated quality management in place. Without formal documentation of specific problems, it was difficult to identify and effectively resolve issues. The company was also setting out to achieve ISO 9001 Certification and implementing a formal quality management system was a requirement.
Single System Provides Company Wide Visibility into Product and Quality Information
LORD MicroStrain’s quality process is now managed in Empower PLM. Quality control is completely automated and meets ISO 9001:2008 requirements. Departments across the organization including engineering, document control, quality, production, lead technicians and customer support use the system. It creates centralized information management that supports better communication, improved visibility and faster issue resolution. The company processes detailed quality information via Empower such as Non-Conforming Material Reports (NCMRs), Corrective and Preventive Actions (CAPAs), and Return Material Authorizations (RMAs).
“It was a simple decision to adopt the Empower Quality module as our quality system," said Mike Jewett, senior quality engineer, LORD MicroStrain. "We tested a 30-day trial and found it easy to use and the training of our engineers was simple. Furthermore, we eliminated the need to purchase a separate quality management product and we get better visibility into quality issues across our organization by tracking all quality and product record information in one central system.”
Required and custom fields guarantee that all critical information such as the type of NCMR, NCMR Defect Codes, Corrective Action remedial solution, root cause, effectiveness, etc. is captured up front. Any required fields must be completed before the responsible party can approve a stage and move forward on a workflow. The workflow capabilities of Empower PLM ensure the correct people are notified via automatic email notices and raises awareness to fix a problem. Storing all of this information in Empower PLM also provides the engineers with key quality data to help improve their designs.
“Cause analysis is typically the weak link in most CAPA processes due to the manual steps involved,” said Jewett. “By automating our processes with Omnify, we are able to focus on why something went wrong and reduce the recurrence of a similar non-conformance.”
The flexibility of Empower PLM allowed the company to extend the system even further to automate their RMA process. This has proved to be very successful for both the production and customer support groups. “Our service group needed a process to collect all customer/repair notes,” said Jewett. “The built-in RMA process in our SAP ERP system does a nice job with the financials and tying the RMA to a sales order, but lacks the ability to collect data from all parties--the customer, lead technicians and customer service group. SAP also lacks the ability to easily display the status of RMAs.”
With a centralized view, every department now has visibility into all open and closed RMAs. Previously, a customer would call to check on an RMA and a customer support staff would have to physically walk to find the appropriate person or call customer support to have them check the SAP system. With Empower PLM, the RMA number is readily available in Omnify Empower and anyone can easily view the status (e.g. what the issue is, where it is in the process, if there is a warranty, the cost, additional notes, etc.). The same RMA number is stored in the ERP system enabling users to cross reference financials and the detail of the RMA stage. Reports can be generated in Empower PLM to easily review RMAs and sort by data types such as the status, owner, RMA number, or customer name.
“Our parent company, LORD Corporation, has approved all of the processes we have in place within Empower PLM and users are able to access a dashboard to easily view our CAPA and NCMR data, which are important quality metrics for LORD,” said Jewett. “Leveraging the Omnify Empower Quality Management Module gives us an automated, closed-loop quality system which provides a vehicle for resolving problems quickly, supplying invaluable reporting for performance metrics and trend analysis to help improve operations.”
With Empower PLM, LORD MicroStrain has gained a holistic view of product record and quality information. This environment improves overall product development processes, which supports focus on being responsive to customer’s unique requirements and delivering award-winning products.
