CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
30 October 2007
Implementation Investments
Large Defense Contractor Chooses IQS to Ensure Quality; IQS to Automate Quality and Reduce Nonconformances
IQS has announced that a large defense contractor, responsible for manufacturing armored trucks for the Unites States of America's military, has chosen IQS to automate quality procedures in order to streamline their operations, proactively reduce defects and improve timeliness and visibility.
"Quality is simple to manage with the same rigor companies manage finances - it is a matter of having actionable intelligence to resolve issues and improve processes," says Michael Rapaport, President and CEO of IQS. "IQS' lifecycle approach to quality management provides companies centralized, real-time information to make the kinds of decisions that business can rely on."
IQS replaced the defense contractor's bevy of disconnected, home-grown quality systems that were laboriously maintained by IT. The legacy systems stored supplier, product, equipment, employee, and customer information in silo's where it couldn't be used efficiently. The disparity created lethargic, manual and costly response processes to any production issue, and made proactive improvement almost impossible. IQS provided a central, highly-connected repository for all aspects of quality information, along with an interface that gave people from engineering, purchasing, manufacturing and quality all access to actionable information they needed to respond quickly. IQS integrated seamlessly with the defense contractor's legacy Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system to create a single point-of-entry for updating and managing quality data.
IQS isn't limited to working within a plant's four walls. IQS provided cross-plant trends and visibility to proactively resolve and prevent issues. IQS has also bridged the quality gap with the defense contractor's subs, proactively reducing nonconformances by making the latest revision of product specifications and inspection plans available to internal teams and subs - in real time.
The defense contractor further extended the capabilities of IQS by leveraging hand-held scanners to reconcile incoming parts information with inspection parameters stored in IQS. IQS automatically notifies personnel whether a part should be held for inspection or Production Part Approval Process (PPAP), to further prevent nonconformances from entering the production line.
"IQS looks at quality as a team sport. It provides the centralization and visibility to allow departments, plants, and suppliers to work together to resolve, then to prevent issues," said Lori Gipp, Vice President of Marketing at IQS. "IQS is the missing link between engineering and ERP, filling the void that headline-making quality issues fall into. Growing companies recognize that manual quality processes and disparate systems are a long-term waste of time and money. By optimizing one of the last truly manual processes in the company, IQS not only improves quality, it improves the way businesses run" added Gipp.
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