NOVEL SOLUTIONS
Improving Quality Through Product Design
SHANNON WETZEL, SENIOR EDITOR T
he tagline for James Adams’ book Good Products, Bad Products is “Essential elements to achiev- ing superior quality.” T e book editors should
have added “through product design” at the end. Adams writes that the book is about quality—and it is—but not in a nuts-and-bolts, shop-fl oor kind of way. Your casting engineers and customer’s product design team probably will learn more from the book than a quality assurance or operations manager would. A professor at Stanford with a background in
engineering, Adams wrote Good Products, Bad Products based on a course he teaches. T e book doesn’t provide specifi c ways to improve quality in your metalcasting facility; it is intended to make the reader think deeper into product quality—what it entails and how it can be improved. Why can’t an industrial product have some artistic fl air to it? Line, form, color, texture and weight, as well as draft and fl ashing from casting, are factors in products’ aesthetics, the author writes. When told industry is about making money, not beauty, Adams’ response is perhaps beauty is a way to make money. Part of the popularity of Apple products stems from aesthetics. Airplane propellers hold beauty in their function. Castings that incorporate several parts into one piece often are considered elegant. Adams encourages businesses and their product designers to increase their creativity and innovation while also being more aware of performance, cost and price. True cost to a customer, he writes, should include the purchase price, repair and service, operating costs, insurance, etc. Performance goals should be open ended and clearly so—“it is helpful if people at all levels have a sense of the amount of uncertainty in the process that sets product goals, as quality may be overlooked,” Ad- ams writes. A small suggestion from someone further down the design chain (or the casting supplier) could result in high gains in quality, and businesses would benefi t by keeping that line of input open. Good Products,Bad Products won’t have you
storming your quality department with ingenious ways to improve casting quality, but it may give you a better understanding of your customer and your customers’ ultimate goals. A lot of what Adams talks about in his book—aesthetics and matching fi t and function—fall into line with what the casting process off ers. You can be an asset to your customers with a better appreciation for how they need to improve their fi nal product design.
ABRIDGED
Relevance to Metalcasters Technical Diffi culty Self-Help Fluff Profi t Booster
“T e seductive power of quantifi cation causes us to be overly attracted to
performance and to neglect many aspects of quality that are less measurable but
nonetheless highly important.” Metalcasters’ Translation: While not as easily
measured as tensile strength or elongation, a casting’s appearance and design are important aspects of product quality. Sloppy grinding marks may not aff ect how the casting works in the fi eld, but it still leaves an impression on the customer and your customer’s customer.
April 2012 MODERN CASTING | 41
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