Techtronic Industries Co. Ltd. (TTi) manufactures a number of power tools and home floor care appliances, including such brands as Ryobi, Milwaukee, Homelite, AEG, Hoover, Dirt Devil and Vax. TTi’s rigorous product development, cost containment and quality management programs drive the company’s operational efficiencies which improved gross profit by 13.3% in 2010, and net profit by a whopping 50.7%.  TTi has plants all over the world.  In order to offset the impact of global commodity and wage inflation the company has implemented aggressive productivity initiatives, and requires a quality system capable of driving their six-sigma goals.

TTi Machine Shop in GuangDong HouJie City has been in operation for over twenty years. It has fifteen workstations dispersed throughout the plant that connect to a variety of digital gauges, wireless gauges, Zeiss and Mitutoyo CMMs, Z-MIKE non-contact optical readers, Mahr contour plotters, air gauges,  and other devices.  These workstations collect real time data and feed it to centralized management PCs.  

They built the “total quality management network” using QDA solutions.  

QDA is a powerful suite of software modules that facilitates achievement and verification of quality goals such as process control, cost reduction, process optimization and standard compliance documentation.  

It’s flexible and can be integrated seamlessly into existing processes and IT infrastructures.  

QDA SPC Data Collection

QDA’s SPC module has been implemented in a number of areas within TTi Machine Shop.  Collected data measurements and tolerances on machined parts are displayed in real time and deployed to distributed desktops.  Control charts are also generated, giving quality professionals a visual point of control.     

Daily Reporting

Managers receive daily reports where they can review the entire manufacturing. They can, for example, view the status of check plans.The data is refreshed by the minute, allowing them to track and attack any issues as they occur.

The efficiencies gained are substantial. “QDA helps us to visually monitor and directly control our processes and reduce scrap,” notes Bill Zheng, Q.A. Engineer for TTi Machine Shop. “We now manage quality efficiently and systematically. The program stores, analyzes and displays data so that we can easily understand the history, monitor the current situation and anticipate future quality issues with an impressive degree of accuracy.”

Long Term Reporting

TTi can also assess overall and long term effectiveness. 

Quality Planning

Easy-to-use, efficient QDA software ensures that data is collected quickly and accurately.   As an integral module within QDA, PPAP’s uninterrupted link to the CAD tool eliminates unreliable data transfer.  Real-time availability of relevant data guarantees conformance to ISO 9000 and VDA 6.x standards. 

Management and KPI Reporting

The QDA Management and KPI Reporting Solution facilitates achievement of time-to-market, cost and revenue objectives by consolidating quality data acquired from disparate manufacturing devices and systems into useable business metrics.  Here the TTi Machine Shop scorecard presents percentage goal achievement for a number of KPIs, including casting, machining, plating and honing quality, warranty and scrap.  

TTi Machine Shop has taken advantage of several modules of QDA, harnessing the synergies of quality integration and moving their quality operations and standards forward significantly.  In doing so, they have been recognized as one of the most advanced and automated manufacturing plants in China.  Since the software’s implementation, the plant has achieved:

> higher levels of accuracy and efficiency

> quicker problem resolution

> greater overall process improvement

> significant cost savings

> greater operational flexibility

> better financial returns

> increased competitiveness and market share

. . . keeping TTi on the forefront of  Cutting Edge Quality.