Quality Control in the Consumer Packaged Goods Industry

Manufacturers of consumable goods need flexibility to handle diverse customer and compliance requirements while keeping yield and quality high.

Today’s Consumer Packaged Goods manufacturers benefit from ongoing demand for consumables such as food and beverages, cosmetics, apparel, cleaning products, supplements and pharmaceuticals, and many other products. They thrive on emerging opportunities as consumer demands change. And they reach an increasingly global marketplace.

But this dynamic environment brings serious challenges. Whether Consumer Packaged Goods makers sell to end consumers or provide components for big product makers, they must:

Meet challenging customer quality standards
Execute tight turnarounds with short leads
Offer the best possible per-item price
Stand out in a highly competitive landscape
Meet the compliance requirements of a variety of agencies

As a result, quality managers in the Consumer Packaged Goods industry need real-time visibility—within plants and across the globe—to proactively:

Drive down costs
Increase speed and yield
Increase quality and prevent defects through continuous improvements
Ensure part and product traceability

InfinityQS^® Statistical Process Control (SPC) software provides an enterprise-wide, single solution that enables Consumer Packaged Goods quality managers to accomplish these goals. In addition, InfinityQS solutions:

are based on real-world manufacturing experience in short-run or high-mix/low-volume production environments where SPC can be especially challenging;
offer flexibility to manage quality in complex environments with extreme efficiency
enable data collection from any existing equipment, so quality managers can effectively capture, combine, and compare data and discover where they have the greatest opportunities for improvement.

NorthStar Battery leverages real-time data so they can react quickly before problems escalate.

InfinityQS automates real-time data collection and analysis on the shop floor to enable early detection of problems, so the team can take action to prevent additional defects and nonconformities. This early prevention reduces scrap, rework, and recalls, providing significant savings to the bottom line.

InfinityQS users reduce their recall risk by dramatically reducing process variation. And ProFicient’s Lot Genealogy and Reporting functionality minimises recall costs by enabling tracking of raw material lot codes throughout manufacturing operations.

Based on these cost reductions and others, you’ll be able to demonstrate a significant return on investment within a very short timeframe.

Real-time visibility to reduce cost

In a recent survey of our customer base, customers reported they reduced their scrap by an average rate of 12.7% per week. They also reported an average 14.3% reduction in man-hours for rework.

Paper and spreadsheets can no longer get the job done given today’s need for extreme precision in Consumer Packaged Goods manufacturing. Quality managers need visibility into the specific metrics and granular details that deliver value to their organisations and their end customers.

InfinityQS experts understand:

Defect analysis: We understand defect data—and defect opportunities. InfinityQS SPC software is capable of leveraging metrics for Defects Per Million Opportunities (DPMO) and Defects Per Thousand Opportunities (DPTO) to allow Consumer Packaged Goods manufacturers to compare products of varying complexity.
Variation analysis: We truly understand the variation introduced by time, across pieces, and within pieces. Our 3D control charts capture this analysis.

Improved quality, reduced defects and variation

Today, Consumer Packaged Goods manufacturers need real-time and accurate data that is visible from the production floor to the corner office. Quality managers need visibility within plants and across multiple facilities, often on a global basis, to drive continuous improvements by:

Prioritising process improvement efforts
Comparing production line capability
Ensuring product conformity

InfinityQS SPC software provides these capabilities in real time, even for short-run and high-mix/low-volume production environments, by using advanced statistical techniques.

Manufacturers with very small lot sizes and multiple key characteristics on each part use InfinityQS solutions to analyse process consistency across product setups. And monitoring precision tool wear and quick change overs are no problem.

With InfinityQS cloud-based solution, organisations gain real-time visibility into their suppliers’ shop floor quality data before nonconforming product even ships. This enhanced level of supplier monitoring can:

Eliminate source inspections and Certificates of Analysis (COA)
Reduce inventories
Provide additional quality improvements and cost savings

InfinityQS ProFicient software provides a track-and-trace lot genealogy solution across the entire supply chain, enabling Consumer Packaged Goods manufacturers to:

Significantly reduce the time and costs of recalls
Take proactive steps to prevent recalls
Automate processes, documentation, and reporting

Lot Genealogy reports provide a complete view of the incoming/outgoing product relationship complete with statistical summary information.

ProFicient’s Lot Genealogy and Reporting functionality enables Consumer Packaged Goods suppliers and manufacturers to track raw materials or component lot codes throughout manufacturing operations. For investigation purposes, genealogical "trees" can be created for any lot. These reports allow you to determine:

Materials used in the production of a specific finished lot
Where incoming raw materials were consumed
Root causes of nonconforming lots
Information critical for responding to product recalls
Which final lots were created from incoming lots

Dynamic Scheduler

You can specify unique, time-based intervals based on the product, process, or even the workstation. Windows automatically pop up, clearly identifying when data collections are due. If a failure is detected or if no data is collected, ProFicient can automatically send notifications, email administrators, or even force users to specify assignable cause codes and corrective actions.

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Audits are easier with instant access to quality records and electronic documentation needed to demonstrate compliance. Our a robust solutions can stand up to third-party or internal audits for Quality Management Systems (QMS) or automotive OEMs. Creating reports takes only minutes instead of hours or days, eliminating the need for spreadsheets.

InfinityQS solutions boast built-in checklist and workflow alerting features needed to comply with Quality Management System SPC requirements for key product characteristics, Critical Quality Attributes (CQAs), and Critical Process Parameters (CPP).

You can incorporate work instruction requirements at the production floor level, providing automatic data collection prompts to operators. InfinityQS’s real-time Dynamic Scheduler offers a visual checklist to operators, reminding them when to perform critical quality checks.

Manufacturers in Consumer Packaged Goods industries must also comply with filling requirements for Net Content (weight) Control. The Net Content Control feature from InfinityQS supports both the US Department of Commerce Maximum Allowable Variation (MAV) and European Union Tolerable Negative Error (TNE) and T1/T2 requirements, plus related Net Content Control reporting to support the needs of global manufacturers.

Many Consumer Packaged Goods ProFicient users see fast ROIs based solely on reduced “giveaway” or overfilling of product using the Net Content Control functionality.

When enabled, Database Auditing provides full traceability for any modification, edit, or change to any database record. Traceability records are easily viewed in a variety of ways, but they cannot be edited. Whenever a record modification or deletion is attempted, the “Reason for Change” tracking feature forces users to select a reason for the modification from a drop-down list. Additionally, free-form comments are required. When specified, a Change History and Reason for Change Report can accompany any chart printout.

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