Quality is Essential: Are You Doing Enough? By Tony Robinson, analytics director, ARPM
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ost, if not all, manufacturers advertise quality as a top priority. This characteristic is shown on company websites, pamphlets, social media and other forms of marketing. Customers demand a certain level of quality in their parts, or they will take their business elsewhere. However, meeting customer standards and striving for the highest quality possible are two very different things. This begs the question: how do companies that successfully prioritize quality compare to companies that meet the bare minimum? In other words, do companies that work to improve quality internally perform better than those who do not? The answer may seem obvious, but to provide better insight, the Association for Rubber Products Manufacturers (ARPM) conducted an industry analysis and published its 2022 Production & Quality Report in March. This report dives into a variety of key performance indicators (KPIs) to benchmark production and quality performance in both the rubber and plastics industries. It is important to note that KPIs analyzed in the report are not necessarily measured by all manufacturers, and it is the Chart 1. decision of the manufacturer to determine how performance is measured. One straightforward metric for examining a facility’s quality standards is to view its acceptable quality level (AQL), or the percentage of defects considered acceptable in a sample batch of a manufactured product. The average AQL reported was 2%, which provides for a better statistical understanding of performance of manufacturers in the rubber 16 Inside Rubber // 2022 Issue 2
Chart 2.
and plastics processing industries. When examining this metric segmented by market served, companies serving the automotive sector had the lowest average AQL (Chart 1). Even if a facility meets its own internal standards, customers may still find issues. Eighty-four percent of survey respondents track customer complaints, and on average, processors received 23 customer complaints in 2021. Despite having the lowest average AQL, processors serving the automotive sector also received more customer complaints on average (about 35), much higher than the industry average. This is a testament to the rigorous standards of major automotive companies. Overall, a manufacturer can consider itself best-in-class if it receives fewer than 10 complaints a year (Chart 2).
