Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Solutionology Stories. Today’s topic is all about quality.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
And we’re here with a special guest, Hannah Kinder, who is our head of quality and production at DI Labs. She’s responsible for everything that comes off the shop floor and ultimately out the door. Thanks for joining us.
Hannah Kinder (00:17):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
So we’re talking about quality today, and we’re going to talk about some of the ugly underbellies of quality and additive manufacturing, high scrap rates, difficult and challenging quality considerations, and trying to figure out what the expectations are of the client, so that we can deliver the right thing.
Hannah Kinder (00:37):
As you join us for this journey, I would like you to think about, what does quality mean to you?
Speaker 2 (00:42):
And how do you balance quality, timeline, and cost, because those are critical aspects to have a successful outcome.
Hannah Kinder (00:51):
And we hope you enjoy this episode.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
So quality is a touchy subject, because it can be ambiguous, and until we get into the details of a project, we’re talking about the structure of it. So, today, we’re going to talk about the structure of quality and the key components that we have at DI Labs that help us execute in meeting this quality expectation that’s so widely different for each and every client. This podcast series has really been headed with digital mindset. Digital mindset is about being in transition and working through changes and being in a state of change at all times. What’s interesting about quality and digital mindset is, in some cases, they could feel like oil and water, because quality is a set stone process and a deliverable, and being in a digital mindset, blending that with quality, it’s kind of scary, because how do you come out with expectations met?
Speaker 2 (01:56):
I can see that, because typically when you’re thinking about quality, you’re thinking about standardization and repeatability, which is that oil and water aspect with a digital mindset. So, [inaudible 00:02:07], where are you going with that?
Speaker 1 (02:08):
The way that we’ve founded our business is in the digital process, having the digital mindset allowing us to improve, optimize, and roll with changes in order to meet expectations. So for us, this quality component blends in well with the digital mindset, because without that, without the digital mindset, for us to deliver on this quality expectation, we wouldn’t be able to elevate our capabilities. We’d be slower to change. We’d be meeting the bare minimum, but with the digital mindset allows us to take a step back and approach it and meet these requirements all the way from uncompromising where everything is perfect, all the way to the most basic, where this is an engineering prototype functional widget that the client needs.
Hannah Kinder (02:57):
I think another way of looking at that as well is your quality expectation may not change. So let’s just say you have a visual aspect, but how you get to that may change, which is how they play hand in hand with each other. So you’re optimizing the process to get the same quality apart.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Everybody talks about high quality. And if you were to ask someone, “Would you accept poor quality?” The answer is probably always no, right? And this quality becomes… That conversation becomes more important as we’re talking about it as a trade-off, especially with additive manufacturing, because there are so many different variables that are in addition to traditional manufacturing methods that we have to control, that there’s a bigger cost to quality, whether it’s time or dollars with additive manufacturing than you might find with a traditional manufacturing method. So that’s where the quality becomes a point to really zero in on and understand what does it mean, because quality, I don’t want the highest quality at any cost or at any time impact. I want the quality that’s right for my application.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
What areas of quality do you see impacted where there’s this variability that occurs?
Hannah Kinder (04:12):
Well, I think quality in general has different definitions for every client and customer. Some customers and clients have a understanding or a definition that it’s a visual, so it needs to look good. The surface finish needs to be beautiful. It needs to be almost show ready or show floor ready. And then, you have other clients that need the tolerance aspect, so they need to fit in a range of measurements, which maybe means that they lack in the visual side. And then, you have other clients that are producing prototypes, so they just want something that just comes off the printer, because they want to see what it looks like. So understanding the definition of quality for each client is super important, because we all think of quality differently from each other.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
So you just shared visual, dimensional, and then functional, which I’d call just like the shape and geometry of the part. Is there ever a case where you have those things combined, like visual and dimensional, and how does that change the dynamics for production?
Hannah Kinder (05:17):
Yeah, we do have some clients that need a visual and a functional aspect, and a lot of those times, they’re going to shows to show off their models. I think a really good example is a lot of our medical clients, they need it to look good, but they also need it to function. And so a lot of the times with those projects, you have a higher scrap rate or a higher defect rate or non-performance rate, because they have to meet certain requirements. So it just makes it harder on production in general to get quality parts to the finish line.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
What’s your experience of the culture and the mechanism that we use to help instill that process, so that all of our team members understand that our focus point is quality?
Hannah Kinder (06:02):
Yeah. So one of our culture is learning, so we have to teach each other. What does that look like? What exactly are we defining as a non-conforming part based off of each section of quality? So visual, so that would be the surface quality of that, so defining what is a good version of a surface quality versus a non-conforming part. And then, the grit and determination of making sure that, “Hey, everyone understands what that is as we’re looking at these parts, we’re de-patterning these parts, we’re learning from different customer parts, as we see similar parts coming through, making sure that we’re handling it properly, we’re depowdering it properly.” So there’s just a lot of learning that comes into that.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
So as we’re talking about quality and you’re highlighting a couple of the core values, as we’re talking about quality, you’ve been at DI Labs now for three years, going on three years?
Hannah Kinder (07:00):
Going on three years, yes.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Going on three years. Time flies.
Hannah Kinder (07:02):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
What’s been your experience at DI Labs compared to some of your other employment experiences?
Hannah Kinder (07:08):
DI Labs is very different from any job that I’ve ever worked or any industry that I’ve been in. We have the mindset that we’re always changing, and that’s not a known thing for a lot of different industries. They are set in their ways, they have one particular process. You have to follow that process. It may not be the right process, but you’re still following it, and there’s no room for improvement within those processes, because they’re very set. With DI Labs, there’s always room for improvement and opportunity to improve, and so you’re always moving towards the next step. We’re innovative. We want to make sure that we are ahead of everyone in the way that we operate. And so that is a complete difference from some of the industries that I’ve been in.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
So that aligns well with our recent journey with ISO. And how do you think that ISO, how do we relate to ISO? What was that process like as we’ve onboarded that?
Hannah Kinder (08:03):
Yeah, so ISO, really, it has kind of two definitions, or I have a business definition and then the actual definition of ISO, too. So ISO definition is basically just requirements for your QMS system or your quality management system. Then if you look at it from a business aspect, it’s a defined program for improvement. So the whole goal of ISO is to be able to take your processes. You have risk-based thinking, and then you have the process approach, and then you are defining your areas of improvement. And it’s not just leadership that defines those areas, it’s giving the tools for your employees to define those areas, too. So if we are doing our manufacturing process, and we’re making the same mistakes over and over and over, that gives everyone an idea that that process needs improvement, because the same trends are occurring.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
So we’re ISO9001 certified now, ISO 9100:2015 version, and from my standpoint, it happened remarkably fast, going from being non-third-party certified to third-party certified ISO. What was that journey like? From the outside, it looked easy. And how would you characterize that journey?
Hannah Kinder (09:13):
Yeah, so the journey itself, I will say, was probably smoother than a lot of companies have gone through, but that’s because we had a good foundation to begin with. I think you two have done amazing job as leaders, making sure that we had a system in play, that when we decided to onboard ISO that we were already set up with the foundation portion. And then, we were just throwing in what the requirements were for the QMS side of things. So really, it was just getting the process plans into place, but we already had the foundation with all of our ERP system, with our SOPs. So we were already in a really good spot when we decided to go down this journey. So having a good foundation first will set you up more for success later down the road.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
There’s a few auditing stages as we go, and we become certified. So what was your experience working with the internal auditor and working with our external auditor as we were pulling together for the first time?
Hannah Kinder (10:10):
Yeah. So we had an external internal auditor. And when we sat for six hours and we went through our whole entire system, and what was really interesting to hear from his perspective is he was like, “You guys are set. I have no problems with you guys moving forward with doing your audit. You guys already have all your processes. You have your foundation. You have this amazing system.” And he was really impressed that our ERP system was our main housing of almost all of our processes, so they all kind of tied in with each other, which kind of goes back to the process approach, where one input in your activities and then the output, which an output for one process, is an input for another process and how that flowed even through our digital side.
(10:55):
And then, our actual external auditor, he was really impressed. He was like, “You guys have an amazing foundation,” and we were able to get through it really quickly, too. I think majority of those audits take about six hours, and I think we got done with it in two hours. And he also made the comment that he felt that he could come in any day during the week, surprise us, and we would be able to still have the same output that we did during our scheduled audit, which that’s praise, which is really awesome.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Yeah, certainly, we had some foundation built, but having you lead that program and execute it and tie us together with ISO process, that was the key component for us to be ultimately successful.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Nice job. Thank you for all of that hard work.
Hannah Kinder (11:49):
You’re welcome.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
What would you say is your biggest challenge?
Hannah Kinder (11:53):
My biggest challenge is understanding the expectation. I think we get clients that say they want the highest quality part, but to them, quality is functional. So when I hear, “I want the highest quality part,” that means, “I want it to look good. I want it to function good. I want everything to be beautiful, perfect, perfection,” but to them, that’s a function. So they want it to be able to function properly. So, maybe, it goes into another housing, it needs to screw in. So the function and the quality expectation is it works, but it’s not the actual visual aspect of it. It can have some surface roughness. It can have some print lines. It can have some visual aspect that may not be perfect, but when you say, “I want the highest quality apart,” when I hear that, it needs to be perfect. So, for me, that’s the most challenging aspect is to understand what the expectation truly is from the client.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
So why not just produce everything to the same level? Why not produce everything to the highest level of quality expectation regardless of what the customer’s expectation is?
Hannah Kinder (13:11):
When you’re thinking of it that way, that could cause the timeline to be longer. That could cause us to have higher scrap rate or non-conforming parts, which means that your product’s going to cost more. It could mean that we have to do some geometry changes, something to optimize the actual part itself, so that you get the high quality. So there’s a lot of R&D that could go in the background if you’re producing always to the top-tier quality. It doesn’t mean that it’s not doable or achievable, it just means it takes a little bit more effort.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
Part of this podcast is to help tell the story of understanding the trade-offs between quality, timeline, and cost or price. And that’s something that I don’t think we, as an industry, talk about enough. Everybody touts high quality. Everybody touts low cost, and the industry does that, because they want to promote the technology and promote sales, basically. But this aspect of balancing those things, quality, timeline, and cost is a real aspect that we all probably need to do a better job at communicating, so that we can have those trade-offs and those levers pulled to the right degree, because to your point, in some cases, it’s okay if it has a little bit of surface character marks. It’s okay if the dimensions are a little bit out of spec as long as the general form and function meet the requirements. And so I think that’s a big takeaway that I have as been talking through this, for sure.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
For us, as we’re working through this wide range of quality expectations, as we’re dealing with thousands of parts on the production floor at any day, we have to have the right tools in place and able to navigate what might be a widget or a prototype that’s sitting right next to the top-tier quality component. And we need to be able to investigate those and inspect them to the right range so that we’re not mixing them up. So having all the pieces come to place, we need the sales come in, navigate that journey with the client, set the expectation, capture that data, deliver that to the production team, and then the production team has to have clear line of sight to all those different activities in real time, so that we can effectively understand the difference between the range of products that could be sitting in front of us.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
From a scrap standpoint, talking about that in terms of percentage, what are the implications of having the highest quality? What does the scrap look like for something like that? Or is it 50% scrap? Is it 20%? Is it 1%?
Hannah Kinder (16:00):
No, I mean, it’s all different for all different geometries. It could be 25%. It could be 5%. It’s all different based off of, what is the product? What is the geometry? What does it look like? How thick it is? Is it blocky? If you have a more blocky shape, you’re going to have a higher defect rate. If you have a thicker wall thickness, you’re going to have more chances of surface quality issues or surface defects, so it all varies.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
And some of those cases, as we’re onboarding that new program, it’s sort of we need to get running now, because our lead time doesn’t need to have parts on this date. So we experience some of that pain on the front end knowing that we’re going to experience it, and we navigate the improvements as we continue down that production journey, so we can decrease scrap, where we can, and get alignment on quality expectations.
Hannah Kinder (16:52):
And that’s why it’s really important from the production standpoint to do a PPAP process, too. So you can get the sample parts, you see how they operate, you see how they print, send them off to the clients, they approve it, and then you can move into a production process. That’s why DFAM is also really, really important.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
The nuances there, it’s sort of hidden. We are talking about quick lead time, we’re going to be rolling with the punches, and we’re going to be making changes to optimize the throughput as we go. And the alternative there, following a PPAP style process, where we don’t have this tight runway, be it two weeks from today, we have to have production parts to our client. If we’re able to be thoughtful and set this timeline up further in advance, it allows us to go through this methodical journey of designing for their parts and making sure that we can scale up their program with the least cost, least scrap possible. It’s a critical point where if we have the lead available, we can make magic happen.
Hannah Kinder (17:51):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
And if we don’t, we’ll make magic happen anyways.
Hannah Kinder (17:55):
Exactly. We’re the magic factory.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
I’m still processing this 10 to 25% scrap component. I think I heard you say that for a client’s project, it’s a production project, and we’ve got to dial in, so our scrap is as low as 10%. That’s like mind-blowing. From any other production process, 10% would mean that the project would be unprofitable and 25%, it’s like, [inaudible 00:18:26], and that’s really the reality of additive manufacturing. So, to me, that 10% scrap rate on a good day coupled with really understanding client expectations is critical. And that’s something that we definitely need to be talking about more, because there’s no sense in having 25% scrap rate if the client will accept some surface character marks.
Hannah Kinder (18:52):
That’s why we have ISO. ISO gives you a program where you have non-conformities, you address them, you do corrective actions, and then you do improvements to eliminate some of those non-conformances that occur on the client side. So it’s how you react and how you can make improvements.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Are you working on any improvements today? Is there any improvements that we have on our lists?
Hannah Kinder (19:15):
We do. We always have improvements. We always achieve to be better. So we are always using the process approach where improvements are a huge part of our culture.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
It took us several years to get to the point where we pulled the trigger on the independent ISO auditing and ultimate certification, and that’s something that we were pretty intentional about. And the way that I see that is that we were certain to uncover as many of the inherent issues in the process and production operation, so that we could uncover them, learn from them, improve, uncover, learn, improve, and get to the point where, by the time that we get to the ISO certification, it’s smooth sailing and the improvements, it’s like the majority of the improvements we’ve made have been in the past. That’s all the dead bodies are in the past, and today, the improvements that we’re making are optimizations.
(20:15):
And I think that that results in a more cohesive team that is higher morale. And as a whole, our team is higher functioning, because we’ve done all of the hard work a long time ago to get to the place today, where it’s still hard work, but it’s not nearly as hard as it was on the early days, learning all those hard lessons about orientation, pack densities, energy levels, environmental controls, all those things that we learned the hard way back in a long time ago.
Hannah Kinder (20:53):
And we also give the tools to everyone that if they see something that they’re like, “I could do that better.” We give them the tools to be able to speak up and then actually try their suggestions. It’s [inaudible 00:21:04], “They’re not shut down.” It’s always, “Hey, let’s try it. Why not? Let’s try it. See if it improves, it improves it. There’s no problem with that.” We want you to make the improvements. We want you to use your voice. We want you to use your ideas. I mean, that’s the whole point of DI Labs, too, is to be innovative, think of a solution.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Makes me think of how we manage priorities in the new product development funnel and keeping the concepts in the concept phase and bringing that down, so we’re putting all the effort at the front end, and we’re not going back in the project funnel to develop something later on, which is always harder. It’s always way harder to do it later. So do the hard work up front.
Hannah Kinder (21:45):
Yeah. And it’s okay, too, because change is inevitable. You’re always going to have to change, especially if you want to be better. If you strive and have the drive, I mean, if you want your company to continue to grow, there’s always going to be changed. Always.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
There’s always going to be changed.
Hannah Kinder (22:01):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
I think they call that the digital mindset.
