Management of Quality Information
Suppose you are an electronics manufacturer that tests printed circuit boards in a plant. You want to use descriptive flexfields to collect test results and failure information.
You measure four test results during room temperature testing and two different test results during high temperature testing. You use this information to verify the performance of each board against specifications and collect product and process trend information.
If a board fails any of these tests, it is sent to the central debugging department for analysis to determine the cause of the failure and suggested repairs. You perform Pareto analysis on the failure information collected during the debugging process as the basis of your continuous process improvement efforts on the board line.
Approach 1 - Using Standard Operation and Move Transaction Flexfields
Setup
Use the descriptive flexfield in the Standard Operations window in Oracle Bills of Material to set up the fields for each of the pieces of test information you wish to collect at the test and debug operations. For the test operations, you should create a value set that specifies acceptable limits on test results. For the debug operations, you should create a value set that comprises all causes included in the Pareto analysis and one that includes all possible repairs. As such, whenever you use any of these operations in a routing, Work in Process includes these descriptive flexfields.
Next, you must set up your quality data collection method. You can modify a copy of the Move Transactions window or create your own move transactions window (taking advantage of the Open Move Transaction Interface) to require entry of test results on moves out of a test operation and failure and suggested repair information on moves out of a debug operation.
Execution
Use the descriptive flexfields on move transactions to store the data you collect. You can validate your test results against acceptable limits to force moves to a debug operation if required. For the failure information, set up the descriptive flexfield to require use of one of the predefined failure reasons, and entry of predefined repairs.
Once you have collected the actual test results and failure information, you can use a number of Oracle tools to analyze and report the information.
Approach 2 - Using Shop Floor Transaction Flexfield Only
Setup
Use the descriptive flexfield in the Move Transactions window to set up segments for each of the pieces of test information you wish to collect at the test and debug operations. For the test operations, you should set up a segment with a value set that specifies acceptable limits on test results. For the debug operations, you should set up one segment with a value set that comprises all causes included in the Pareto analysis and another segment that allows entry of suggested repair information.
Execution
You can use the context-sensitive capabilities of descriptive flexfields to require entry of test results on moves out of a test operation, and failure and suggested repair information on moves out of a debug operation.
Once you have collected the actual test results and failure information, you can use a number of Oracle tools to analyze and report the information.
