Good afternoon,
I am looking into utilizing backflush for specific operations. Namely the QC ops that happen at various points throughout the process. These operations are not a significant portion of our labor. However, some QC tasks take a long time. For example, we do not have separate operations for the inspector to check the first piece of a part run at any given operation. Instead, the operator will setup the machine and run a part. Then pass that part off to the QC department. Ideally it comes right back out and they can begin production on that operation. Rarely the first piece might fail, and they need to change the setup somehow or run it again.
What is the best way to account for this time? I hate to think about inserting a first piece operation before every machining operation. We considered leaving the setup op open while QC works. But that doesn’t accurately document QCs time, it makes it look like the setup operator took longer than necessary.
What other methods are there for keeping track of this time parts spend in QC? I may not have the proper vocabulary to talk about this, so help me out!
First article inspection would help you keep track of the sequence of events in the event the initial quantity was not approved and had to be resubmitted in some way.
What time are you trying to capture?
How long someone takes to inspect something? Not sure how you would do that without having them clock into some kind of operation while they work.
There is nothing stopping an inspector from clocking into the Setup operation. You might even be able to change their role code to inspector for tracking. I would have the operator log into setup and report their quantity but not mark setup complete. Then the inspector could log in and if the part passes, mark the setup complete. Then you would know what operations have passed quality by the setup being complete.
Yes, I am trying to capture the time it takes to do that first piece inspection. I like @jkane’s idea of making QC log time under the setup op, and then if QC completes the setup op that means FP passed. We don’t have the quality modules. Does anyone that has the quality modules use another approach that those modules enable?
Yes, the FAI functionality is available. All that really does is provide more functionality based on the determination of the inspector. It can even stop someone from logging into Production if the FAI has not been completed. I think you can just use existing functionality to do this though.
We have the basic quality module. I would say it is worth it if you want to do any kind of inspection/result/disposition tracking in Epicor.
It does not offer any additional mechanism for an inspector to report how much time they spent inspecting something. It does further formalize part inspections by creating unique inspection records that are then processed by an inspector. This allows you to do things like monitor how long it takes between when a part is flagged for inspection to when it actually gets inspected, etc.
First Article is basically tailor made for what you want to do here, aside from the inspector being able to log time.
I am giving John the solution on this one. Though I expect to move towards a method closer to Garret’s once we get the quality module.
Thank you all!!!