Waiting for us upon our arrival back from the Christmas holiday, was the audit report from our registrar’s (SAI Global) 12 month surveillance audit. The report was a well-earned Christmas gift as PC Systems successfully passed surveillance audit with only one opportunity for improvement identified.
Over the past few months, the PC Systems’ management team has been working very diligently to streamline our design and development process. We documented the design and development process with a process flow diagram to show the critical steps and interactions of the engineering, product management, quality, sourcing and customer service department throughout the process. We also development new design review forms to easily identify and record the design inputs, design outputs, design changes, validation and verification during the design and development phases. This hard work paid off as in the auditor’s report, he highlighted the improvements to the design and development process. Other areas of PC Systems’ quality management system which was highlighted in the auditor’s report were the 63 closed continuous improvements and preventive actions complete in 2011, the training matrix and the internal audit program.
As we look forward to 2012, we will continually improve the quality management system at PC Systems. Our focus will be on improving the corrective action process, improving process yields and better understanding our process capabilities. PC Systems will continue to use the ISO 9001:2008 standard to better our quality management system and not just to be certified.
Copy of the PC Systems, Inc. ISO 9001:2008 Certificate found here.
I want to share a continuous improvement effort that was presented by one of our Quality Engineers, Dave Gillen. Dave has worked at PC Systems since “the beginning” and has consistently been looking to improve peel performance of welded wire to Copper solder tabs, which is one of our core products. Through a series of corrective action activities, he had declared that the “flaring” of wires when welding smaller gauges (18/20/22AWG) caused a lower peel value on the weld. Even worse, the “flare” was unpredictable, leading to variability.
Dave found that the “flaring” was caused by the upper electrode design. It was cut as a radius, which did not always capture the wires before the weld. He designed a new upper electrode in a trapezoidal shape. In Dave’s words, “the results were remarkable”, and I agree!
Variability of the weld was reduced significantly with respect to weld peel. Also, the aesthetic difference is impressive as well, as you can see in the photographs. We look forward to using this new design and improving our capability at the welders. As we are all aware, this reduced variability will likely lead to reduced scrap and increased throughput, allowing us to manage our costs for your benefit!
What an exciting time to be part of PC Systems! Not too long ago, I introduced you to Kevin Genevro, a new Engineer to our team. I have similar exciting news on the Quality front as Andy Gahr joins our team as Quality Manager. Andy carries a stellar resume and we consider his addition a big step in our growth as an organization. Take a look at his LinkedIn profile:
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/andrew-gahr/7/956/7a0
Andy has been certified as a Six Sigma Black Belt, Army Veteran, and is well known locally for his excellent Quality background. More importantly, he has immediately contributed and had an impact at PCS.
With Andy’s guidance, we have rewritten our Design and Development procedures to provide more value to our customer. This was a follow-up to some of our Value Stream Map exercises to get rid of Waste in those processes. Hopefully you get an opportunity to feel the benefits of these improvements on your next RFQ with PCS.
Please help me welcome Andy as we continue to transition our company into a solutions provider for all of your electrical interconnect needs.
An additional note, some of you who have had the pleasure of working with Dave Gillen (former QM) in the past may wonder what his status is. He is still here and will be working with Andy in the Quality department helping in all the ways he has in the past.
Here in Pennsylvania, the winter months often provide plenty of opportunity for our local drivers to test their mettle and ability to travel on 
snow-covered roadways. Just the other evening, we received a fresh 4” of snow which I had to drive my pregnant wife home through. A couple inches of fresh snow isn’t too big of a deal here, assuming you have access to some good all season tires and put a proverbial egg under your pedal.
As I was driving home through the slushy “mess” at about 45mph (in a 55mph zone) I was passed by another smaller vehicle. I thought to myself, “Wow, that is risky.” I then thought, “I won’t be surprised to see him upside down in the ditch up the road a little further.”
This got me thinking a little bit about risk with regards to my role at PC Systems, Inc. Unfortunately, when building cable assemblies or wire harnesses, prints and specifications aren’t always complete. Just as I throttled down when the roads got a little dicey when driving my wife home, I also have the tendency to “slow down” projects at PCS when the requirements are incomplete. This is because as an Engineer I have a very low appetite for risk. As our President likes to say, “When we ship parts, we don’t want those parts back.”. This can be incredibly frustrating for other employees at PCS as well as our customers sometimes. Whether we are requesting clarification on a print, signoff on a proposed specification, or holding parts in Quality, we are always doing it with our customers’ best interest in mind. Although it may seem trivial or maybe even annoying, when we request for additional information or sign-offs, it is because this information is required to make sure our parts are functionally correct and not over or under specified.
We understand that many of our customers’ have very complex assemblies and the electrical leads used are typically an afterthought, which is why we do everything we can to understand the application and ask important questions as soon as we start reviewing the inquiry.
So going back to the original metaphor, the gentleman who passed me the other evening did not end up in a ditch. I presume he made it home safe and sound without issue. Perhaps I was being too cautious and could have afforded to speed up a little bit. Here at PCS we have a myriad of personalities, which provides a nice check and balance system for risk assessment and mitigation. You can be sure that both your timing and quality are both balanced and very important in the minds of every employee at PCS.
I don’t expect this is news to anyone, but the ongoing sentiment is that the automotive supply base is fragile right now, and will struggle to ramp back up to capacity.
Here is an article on Autoblog covering this:
http://www.autoblog.com/2010/12/23/report-many-suppliers-downsized-for-crisis-and-now-too-small-to/
The most telling quote for me:
“…many suppliers are reluctant to move beyond overtime and hire on new employees until the economy shows more signs of recovery.”
Here at PC Systems we have been hiring, but we have also been trying to accommodate fluctuations in demand with overtime hours. It seems that both our suppliers and customers are trying to find solid ground and demand forecasting is a real challenge.
We feel we have positioned ourselves well for success in the future. We are hoping that our careful planning and strategy will provide more opportunities for us as customers find their other suppliers struggling to increase capacity.
If you think you can take advantage of our excess capacity, we encourage you to give us a call.
