It’s All about Quality Control
By Paula Zangari
We recently formalized a Quality Control team here at UCEC. It’s comprised of Garrod Massey, myself, Ron Siauw and Morgan Burris. This new team is a great way to continue our Quality Control efforts in an efficient, organized manner.
Ron Siauw. Photo by Paula Zangari.
Morgan and Ron do the day-to-day QC work, and the larger team meets once per month. At our meetings, we go over processes and communications that can make panel production and testing more efficient. Although the team is still a work in progress, so far it really seems to be working out well.
“One focus of the group is to look at ‘best practices’ in the industry, and ensure that our customers’ quality expectations are not only met, but exceeded,” says Mark Inboden, UCEC’s CEO and President.
In the daily work, Morgan checks every panel on the fabrication side. He’s looking for missing elements such as nameplates, terminal blocks, power supplies or fuses. Ron does the safety testing over on the wiring side of the shop. This is a vital task before the panel ships out.
Ron Siauw and Morgan Burris. Photo by Mark Inboden.
For my part, when I learn that a part is missing, I make sure the part is ordered or collected from the warehouse as quickly as possible. We have a good system in place with sign offs by team members when parts come in, so we try to keep everyone in the loop about what parts are where. We’re now keeping all of this information in a database online, so anyone who needs to know can track down where the parts ended up. It’s just one more way of being efficient and keeping an eye on quality. This process is helping with our communication and keeping us all on the same page.
When I think of the Quality Control team, what comes to mind is that double-checking our panels (for both parts and safety) is just one more effort on our part to get the very best handcrafted control panels in the hands of our customers. I am proud that UCEC takes steps to make our processes and panels the best they can be.
Paula is an Operations Support Manager for UCEC.
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