Digital Quality Data Management Goals and How to Get There

Industrial measuring and inspecting solutions are essential to ensure reliable product quality. Today, almost every manufacturing company uses some form of quality equipment in its production process, generating gigabytes of data every day. If you were to go around and ask companies individually, probably all of them would say that Industry 4.0, or digitalization or some other buzzword, is a key priority, at least on their agenda. But the reality is that the sheer volume of quality data, and how to turn that data into meaningful and comparable information, is a tremendous challenge. This is especially true for medium and large organizations with multiple manufacturing sites across the globe and in different time zones.

Talking to different levels of management over the last few years, I have gathered a wide variety of expectations and goals when it comes to quality data management. I would like to discuss a selected number of them and what can be done to make it happen.

1. Creating a single digital workflow for all my measurements.

The standard measurement protocol only documents a single moment in time of a particular part being produced. Sure, this might be enough to meet the requirements of the customer for that part, but what if the machine operator or production manager in charge wants to identify a trend in production? He has to go back to the file folder, pull out the relevant protocols and compare them page by page. That’s a very inefficient way of working and doesn't fit in the normal course of business during the day. Therefore, the foundation of digital quality data management is to create the conditions for converting printed measurement protocols into digital PDF files stored on a computer. But if you are already in the process to take this step, why not look for a solution that allows the machine operator to not only receive a digital PDF file but also features specific evaluations and graphical representations of the measurement data? Or that allows the production manager to evaluate trends and perform statistical analysis. Basically, integrating measurement results into the production environment.

As promising as these solutions sound when you read the usual Industry 4.0 marketing materials, there are a few steps in between that need to be taken. This brings me to the second expectation I came across multiple times.

2. Connecting all my measuring devices independent of their brand.

A successful integration between measurement machines and the production facilities requires consistent data that can be connected and clearly mapped. The typical quality room contains not only one but usually multiple devices from different manufacturers producing measurement and inspection data, often including manual or handheld measuring devices. That’s okay; there is no need to switch to a one-vendor strategy.  However, you can greatly benefit from standardized and parameterized measuring programs that are based on the same semantics, and feed quality data into one central database in real time.

ZEISS offers a quality data management and reporting software called ZEISS PiWeb that allows connecting not only native ZEISS systems but also the measurement equipment of third-party manufacturers, including handheld measurement devices. As a result of this connectivity, you can work with one central database for all quality data generated.

3. Making customized reports for process-relevant measurements.

Depending on the industry segment you are in, the processes may vary, but taking the automotive industry as an example, over a thousand features are inspected in the serial process and several hundred measurement sheets per vehicle type must be stored. By storing all raw data, calculated data, inspection plans and measurement values in one database, you have laid the foundation for a fully digital workflow. This opens up the possibility of deriving measurement values into customized digital reports that are truly relevant to the day-to-day work of machine operators or production managers. Reports ideally include the approved technical drawings, information about the testing equipment, corresponding part serial and part number. With a few simple clicks, the machine operator receives exactly the values he needs to optimally control the machine, rather than having to wade through piles of paperwork.

I have seen customers who not only provide the measurement values but even include the correction values for the processing machines in their reports, values that indicate how much the machining of the part needs to be corrected to achieve the target value. Having this information available reduces user influence and operator stress, and eliminates sources of error.

4. Providing transparency and making decisions based on facts and data, not guesses.

If you belong to regulated industry segments, such as aerospace or the medical devices industry, you face the challenge of documentation and traceability from product development to final quality assurance. To avoid mountains of paper and the accumulation of information on an endless number of drives, a database solution as the central hub for all users of quality data can lead to a massive increase in process reliability, significant cost and time savings and new possibilities for documentation. By the way, this also drastically reduces the number of bad experiences during audits.

You can start off by connecting just a few coordinate measurement machines to create an easily accessible, more transparent and comparable overview of daily work in your quality laboratory. Or take it a few steps further and centralize multiple business areas in different geographical locations. Having all data digitally and globally available opens up the possibility to monitor and evaluate trends by facility, measurement device, part number or feature, either on a daily basis or over a year's time. The logical next step would be to integrate suppliers and service providers into the database as well.

All in all, digital quality data management offers a massive efficiency boost over the old status quo, where measurement and inspection data were stored on a sheet of paper in many different places.