Worker self-inspection is an established and particularly production-related quality assurance procedure that is used both in discrete manufacturing and in the process industry.
During the execution of their work steps, employees check the quality of their production pieces on their own responsibility - this can be done after a certain number of work steps, in particularly critical or error-prone process sections or before handover to the next processing stage.
Through worker self-inspection, intermediate and end products are subjected to continuous inspection according to predefined quality standards - with the aim of avoiding typical errors.
These include
incomplete or faulty processing of components or parts
incomplete or faulty assembly
Incorrect use of machines or tools
defects in the installation or removal of parts or components
defects in the verification of measured values or tolerances
defects in the verification of documentation
etc.
The worker records the results during the inspection, creating transparent and traceable documentation.
Imagine you manufacture 1,000 components, 945 of which are good parts. In this case, worker self-inspection can bring you 55 concrete advantages by avoiding the defects of the 55 bad parts. But even beyond this somewhat tongue-in-cheek example, there are very practical benefits that worker self-inspection can bring to your production.
We have put together four of them:
If the worker has to validate values or check steps at critical points in their production work, they can also detect errors immediately and initiate the corresponding corrective measures. This not only enables the error to be detected and rectified, but also prevents the worker from further processing a faulty product and ending up with a product that no longer shows its faulty components in the final QA.
If product quality is consistently controlled, problems can also be consistently avoided. The results are:
If you read between the lines, you might object: If every worker now also checks everything, they will also lose time. In principle, this is true, but even the total time spent on all inspection steps is less than the time spent on reworking and complaints that are received by other colleagues in the event of errors.
When employees take on quality control tasks, they also take responsibility for the quality of the product. This increases the quality awareness of the workers and can lead to greater safety and satisfaction in their daily work - even to a better identification with the product and the company's goals. In addition, employees also receive direct feedback on the quality of their work as part of the worker self-inspection. Ideally, everything should be in the green at every round, which in turn can have a positive effect on self-confidence.
Worker self-inspection promotes continuous improvement processes through the systematic collection of quality data and defect classes. As soon as you see where defects frequently occur, you can target these points and initiate improvements. This idea can be extended to a zero-defect strategy: If you can rule out errors as early as the production processes through a powerful worker self-inspection, you can also guarantee the highest quality standards in the long term and plan resources for rework.
Anyone talking about advantages must also consider the disadvantages. And, of course, even worker self-inspection is not something you can simply set up and then everything will work perfectly.
When quality assurance tasks are transferred to the worker, the previous complete quality control also disappears from the responsibility of the quality assurer. In principle, this means that all steps of the worker's self-inspection must be documented in a watertight manner, as the final QA must also refer to the results of the worker's self-inspection in addition to its own documentation.
Your workers are not necessarily up to the challenges of a worker self-inspection. The test steps represent additional tasks and increase the complexity of the daily work. This can present the worker with challenges, perhaps even overtaxing them. After all, there was already enough to do and pay attention to. Now there is also the QA. In case of doubt, the worker may not have all the qualifications required for a watertight worker self-inspection. This can also be a challenge.
You may have already guessed it, so we'll keep it short and sweet: we differentiate between analog and digital worker self-inspection. Everything you've read so far has ignored this distinction. But perhaps you've already noticed that some of the disadvantages of digital worker self-inspection can be easily overcome. But more on that later.
What does this mean?
manual execution of the test steps without the support of digital aids
use of simple testing devices
manual documentation of test results on paper
test results depend on the experience and attention of the employee
What are the advantages?
low to no investment costs for technology
simple implementation
And what about the disadvantages?
high training costs
time-consuming documentation and media disruptions
prone to errors when transferring results to digital systems
quality of testing varies from employee to employee
no transparency or only time-delayed analyses possible
What does this mean?
technological support for the worker, e.g. through sensors, cameras, digital measuring devices
use of digital testing tools for more complex measurements
automatic data acquisition
integration of the selected technology into the existing system landscape
What are the advantages?
greater flexibility and speed of adaptation to changing production conditions
reduction in human error
higher accuracy and reliability of test results
fast and automatic data acquisition and analysis
improved traceability and transparency
And what about the disadvantages?
implementation costs of new software and hardware
dependence on digital systems
complexity during implementation
As with so many things, a whole range of skills and knowledge modules are involved in the worker self-inspection. Accordingly, employees can also undergo intensive training on the subject of worker self-inspection. This usually takes place at several levels.
Managers and quality assurance staff need to build up extensive knowledge in this area:
The employees must also be extensively trained in
documentation and logging
In addition, employees must be required and encouraged to assume responsibility and a sense of responsibility. These are all kinds of challenges that are definitely relevant.
Nevertheless, we recommend that you simplify the path to worker self-inspection - with a digital system.
We don't want to deny that production managers, quality assurance personnel and workers need a good level of know-how for worker self-inspection. However, the good thing about it is that they all already have experiential knowledge that shortens many very specific processes - especially if they are implemented with a standardized digital system. With digital worker self-inspection, you combine the know-how of individual employees with the conditions for successful inspection steps and set up a process that simultaneously empowers and relieves your workers.
Recommendation #1
Introduce a powerful digital system such as a worker assistance system. This will support and relieve your employees and at the same time ensure the automatic documentation of inspection results.
Recommendation #2
Start simple - with simple checks, for example in the form of OK and NOK checklists. This will enable you to achieve initial success and sensitize your workers to the new processes.
Recommendation #3
Use a system that can display limit values. This allows you to specify an upper and lower limit value for measurements that the worker must adhere to and validate.
Recommendation #4
Provide visual support in the system, for example with comparison images of good and bad parts, technical drawings, videos, etc.
Recommendation #5
Ensure that your employees can provide feedback directly in the process. If there are any difficulties or problems during the inspection, you will find out directly and not through a report submitted later.
Recommendation #6
Trained quality inspectors retain sovereignty over the final inspection. Even the best factory self-inspection is no substitute for the skills and expertise of the quality inspector. Ideally, they should also work with the same digital solution and corresponding inspection plans.
Bonus tip
Establish a continuous evaluation of inspection data and internal audits. As the data from all inspection processes is now directly available in digital form, it can be used to optimize processes. For example, if a fault always occurs in the same place, you can start to eliminate the cause of the fault so that it no longer needs to be checked by the worker in future. Internal audits provide you with information on the success of the inspection measures introduced. For example, you can see which error classes occur particularly frequently, which corrective measures have been introduced, how complaint behavior has changed, and much more.
You can achieve significant initial successes within a short period of time by using a suitable digital system for worker self-inspection. A worker assistance system provides the ideal prerequisites for this in many cases. After all, you are already guiding your workers step-by-step through the production processes.
The integration of test steps is just another logical building block here. To make the whole thing a little more tangible, let's take a look at our worker assistance system weasl in practice.
For successful worker self-inspection, weasl comes with:
Seamless integration of the test steps into the current work instructions (without changing workstations, without restrictions for more complex processes)
dynamic test steps that can be automatically inserted by the system according to your specifications
the display of images, videos, checklists, etc. to optimally support the test steps
Immediate or automatic documentation of the test results
process blocks in the event of impermissible deviations, incorrect entries, etc.
visual indications when limit values are exceeded, also linked to process blocks if required
An overview of all required test equipment
the option to sign test steps electronically (so that the inspector can also consciously confirm that the entries are correct)
a feedback function for queries or suggestions for improvement
cross-routing documents such as design drawings
an SPC app for quick visualization and evaluation of test results
In short: with weasl, you can create digital test steps according to your specifications, support your workers with various media during execution and record all relevant data directly in digital form for evaluation in the tool or in connected systems. A worker assistance system with this range of functions is ideally positioned for efficient worker self-inspection.