Techno-Labo is a company which supports the development of plastic products by design, mechanical engineering, prototyping, and low volume production.
As times change, things required for quality control are also changing.
In the current environment where startups bring new products to market one after another, hardware development is strongly required to supply products quickly and at a level that will not lose market confidence.
On the other hand, quality control based on conventional mass production tends to be overly high quality. As a result, development failures that cannot be reached to mass production have frequently occurred.
In the case of test marketing-like product development of start-ups, we believe that it is important to verify what level of quality should be set and guarantee it.
We believe that quality control for low-volume production is to keep original product attractiveness (= quality) during the production process not to reduce it as much as possible and to manage the quality of the finished products not to fall below customers' expectations.
If we define design as a motivator factor to improve the attractiveness of the product, QC is a hygiene factor not to deteriorate it. A hygiene factor alone cannot improve customer satisfaction. QC can be effective only after the product has its original attractiveness.
The quality deterioration of the products is accumulated as development proceeds. QC previously meant the process after injection molding, but it must be started from the early process to retain the attractiveness of the product.
Quality deteriorated when the process changes
Conventionally, QC was performed after parts production
However, in the case of LVP by beginners and start-ups
Quality deteriorates severely before production
=Unrecognized QC
Factors
・Designer: too aggressive, lack of knowledge
・ME: less understanding of the design, poor idea
・Priority: usability or feasibility of manufacturing and cost
These factors can be prevented by building an experienced team and avoiding too aggressive design. However, in the case of startups, these factors will be accumulated until mass-production and lead to severe problems.
Previously, quality deterioration often occurred during design review. Recently, this problem is dramatically decreased by prototyping with 3D printers and CNC machining.
Still, the process of mold manufacturing is causing severe deterioration. The manufacturable design is critical for successful mass-production. If the mechanical engineer understands little about mold, it may cause a big design modification of the mold. The development of new technologies like 3D printers, which do not require knowledge of mold, exacerbate this issue.
Also, wrong selection of mold manufacturer may cause deterioration.
The defects always occur during injection molding. It is not essential to preventing it from happening. Setting a standard of acceptable quality limit is critical.
ａ．Dimension
ｂ．Appearance
ｂ-1. Production process
Sink mark/Flash/Short shot/Silver Streaks/
Burn marks/Contamination/Weld
Lines/Jetting/score...
ｂ-2. Artificial factor
Color/Scratch
ｃ． Inspection
ｄ．Transportation
Scratch/Screwing/Assembling/Wrong parts/Wrong accessories/Design defects
Design defects occur due to lack of time and costs on design review.
The wrong selection of accessories is also a general cause. The product consists of many kinds of parts including a seal, screw, and contact. The suppliers of accessories should be selected at the design phase.
・Damages and scratches occur during transportation
・Inconsistency between the product and the package (Less produce of user experience on unpacking)
・ Instruction
・ Applications integration
To overview the total attractiveness, the development procedure that is driven by the design department is widely spread.
