Ever paint your living room or house and notice that the color is off a tad in some areas over time? I hope not. I remember my cousin the paint contractor telling me to buy paint cans with the same lot number so that my rooms or house will look the same and evenly wear over time. As consumers, I think we all assume that the paints, sealants, adhesives and other coating products we buy from our preferred suppliers, no matter what the lot numbers, will all have the same physical properties.
So, how do paints and coating manufacturers consistently maintain their high-quality standards and fulfill their customer promises, especially when faced with a growing demand for their products?
Many chemical manufacturers today employ advanced chemical quality management software applications that support their QC and QA initiatives by
- leveraging predefined libraries of chemical related quality templates
- performing checklists and inspection plans, in addition to chemical quality control tests
- executing quality tasks on the spot, via mobile devices
- documenting all steps that lead to the continuous improvement of their operations
- providing visibility to actionable quality information.
In the following sections, I described a few “essential” quality related functions that should be supported by your chemical quality management software.
Leverage Predefined Quality Templates and Workflows
One of the “essential” formulation functions found in chemical quality management software is the calculation of organic weights, volatile volumes and other common physical property characteristics of chemical products. Similarly, QC test templates for VOC, viscosity, Ph and other chemical properties are predefined in the application’s quality libraries. During software implementation, the target value, out of tolerance values, sample, retest and other control limit parameters for each existing QC test for a specified item or item group is defined. Predefined libraries allow manufacturers to standardize on the QC tests selected and embedded within intermediate and finished good formula specifications.
Intermediate and finished good QC tests, as well as customer specific SOP’s, are added to one’s formula specifications so that these instructions can be approved by management before the formulas are used in batch production jobs. Departments use multi-level workflows to control and expedite the specification approval process amongst the finance, quality and production managers.
Employ Checklists and Inspection Plans from Receiving through Shipping
At the time of delivery, receiving staff check the cleanliness of a trailer, verify that all vendor delivery documents, and product labels are in order and most importantly, move sample item quantities to QA for vendor item inspections.
Certain items, whether they be ingredients, intermediates or finished goods, can lose their potency or breakdown over time in storage, so the chemical quality control software applications make sure to schedule stability / QC tests against this inventory before they are consumed in production or shipped to customers.
To avoid rework and scrap in production, all required ingredients and raw materials should be available, and all equipment should be set at their optimal settings before initiating the batch production process. Chemical quality control software allows production managers to schedule equipment maintenance tasks to capture settings, such as temperatures, RPMs and pressures.
In addition to inspecting equipment, facility managers schedule inspection tasks of the physical facility, including storage areas or specific locations to ensure their cleanliness or record their environmental conditions (e.g. temperature, humidity).
Chemical quality control applications can help reduce customer chargebacks by incorporating inspection plans for specific customer sales orders just before customers’ finished goods are loaded and shipped.
Follow System Directed Best Practices
Ensuring that delivered materials meet one’s standards can significantly minimize issues encountered in production. Based upon a vendor inspection plan, chemical quality control software moves samples of delivered inventory into QA for testing, with the balance putaway into storage. All inventory for this received lot, both the sample quantity and the on-hand inventory quantity, are automatically put on a “Hold” status, which will prevent batch production jobs from allocating it, until which time the lot is released.
To move from one batch production stage to the next, many manufacturers mandate that the captured QC data be reviewed by one individual and then signed off by another. Signatures and date timestamps are captured for the individuals who captured the data, who reviewed and approved the data, and who signed off on the QC test. Until this quality process is complete, the production staff typically cannot close a batch job. A make to stock operation is one situation where a batch production job is closed, and its finished good inventory is put on hold until all QC tests are completed and passed.
Reworking a batch job formula by increasing the amount of certain ingredients or adding new ingredients may be performed to get a formula passed. It’s important to point out that the formula’s physical property target values must still be met when making these types of adjustments.
Steps to Continuous Improvement
Leading chemical quality assurance software applications mandate the capture and reporting of deviations that are encountered during batch production jobs. To support one’s continuous improvement initiatives in production and quality, the application should also support adverse events, customer complaints, nonconformance and CAPA transactions, in addition to deviations.
Accessing the chemical quality assurance software’s centralized database, users can identify issues with specific items, vendors and production line equipment. Prebuilt interactive quality dashboards and reports allow users to drill down into current and historical quality data and share this information with suppliers and customers. Not only can this information improve batch production yields, it can help manufacturers avoid unnecessary customer chargebacks, penalties and fines.
Recommendations
So, when the pressure is on to ensure your products are maintaining your high-quality standards, ensure your chemical quality management solution has all the inbuilt quality features, from receiving thru production to shipping, to avoid the downside of delivering substandard products to your customers.
As for me and my painting projects, I honestly do not want to go thru all the effort again repainting the same areas in a few months or years, so to all of you paint manufacturers – maintain your high-quality standards! And for all of you other coating manufacturers, I am sure your customers feel the same way I do.
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