5 Must-Have Products For Your Factory on World Quality Month

November is World Quality Month. What started in Japan in the 1960s to help build awareness for quality control, has now gown to the point where World Quality Month is now celebrated across the globe to encourage businesses to strive for continuous improvement.

Here at Magnatag Visible Systems, continuous improvement is part of our DNA. For over 50 years, we’ve been supplying manufacturers with tools built to reinforce the importance of strategic improvement.

To get in the spirit of the event, we created a list of some must-have products for anyone that is serious about taking their quality control to the next level.

KPI Monthly Scoreboards
Performance tracking metrics are crucial to assessing the strengths and weaknesses of your organization. With the help of Mangatag’s monthly KPI scoreboards, you can track and communicate the performance of your factory on both a daily and monthly basis. All of our KPI scoreboards are packaged with double-sided green/red magnets to indicate whether or not performance goals are being met.

52-Week Preventative Maintenance Schedule
Malfunctions are a common occurrence when working with machinery. After years of daily use, the tools your company relies on will inevitably fall victim to over-usage. Many factories take proactive measures to protect their investments and schedule annual maintenance check-ups on every machine in their facility. Magnatag’s 52-week maintenance schedule has become a necessary tool for many Quality Control Managers, as they offer a real-time visualization of the current status of your most important assets. The schedules are packaged with multi-color status magnets and T-Card files, providing you with the opportunity to visually monitor the status of maintenance and add maintenance history notes.

Do-Done Project StepTracker
One of the biggest requests that we hear from our manufacturing customers is for a reliable tool for managing processes and projects. Our Do-Done StepTracker whiteboard systems give you the opportunity to easily organize and communicate project status. The board itself functions similarly to our 52-week Preventative Maintenance Schedules, but rather than offering a full 52-week calendar for specific tools, the StepTracker board uses red/green signal magnets to show the current status of multiple projects as they move towards completion. Having the ability to easily communicate where problems align in your factory gives your workforce the added ability to keep production moving—even in the midst of a crisis.

Kanban Job Inventory System
Having a Kanban System in your factory is a necessity. No questions asked. Kanban works as a PULL system, providing your factory with an accurate view of inventory and job loading requirements. Our Kanban systems give you total control over inventory and job counts using an inventory/job card system: Simply place a job card at the bottom of the board; once the jobs have stacked up to the indicated benchmark, your workforce will take notice and begin production on the indicated part. Kanban systems have been a staple of the lean manufacturing process for years, as they allow jobs and inventory to be balanced at the point of use, preventing stock outages and oversupply.

Magnetic SafetyCross^® Awareness System
Safety goes hand-in-hand with quality in the factory: the safer your workplace is, the more efficient and better off your production process will be. In an effort to create and maintain safety and quality, many factory Managers are using Magnatag’s SafetyCross^® dry erase kits. The whiteboards are available in both 1-month and 52-week variations to best suit your factories preferred method of tracking. Days and weeks can be marked with either a green, yellow, or red magnets; signifying accident-free days, medical accidents, and lost-time accidents. Building a solid green accident-free SafetyCross is a powerful motivator for employees.

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For over 50 years, Magnatag has been working with manufacturing managers and supervisors to create field-proven whiteboard systems that enhance production speed and safety. We salute these quality professionals and their valuable contribution to the products they make!