Quality and Process Control—How Mature is Your Company?

Supply chain management is a critical link in operational efficiency and customer satisfaction. Palomar manufactures products in Singapore and Carlsbad, California and sources components and subassemblies from suppliers in Asia and the United States. The performance of Palomar can be no better than the performance of Palomar’s supply chain. Selection and qualification of supplierschecklist is therefore a task critical to customer satisfaction and overall success.  Four considerations in qualifying suppliers include the following:

  • First, we seek to determine whether the supplier has the necessary equipment, employees, skills, experience, facilities, and support organization.

  • Second, we seek to determine if the supplier can be competitive in both cost and delivery time.

  • Third, we seek to determine if the supplier can meet Palomar’s quality requirements.

  • Fourth, we seek to determine if our businesses are mutually aligned with the product or service required.   

Can the Supplier Meet Quality Standards?

A primary consideration in determining if a supplier can meet quality standards is to understand the supplier’s process maturity. Process maturity is a concept that dates back to 1979 and was introduced by Philip B. Crosby in his book, Quality is Free. Over the years, the concept of process maturity has been reincarnated and extended in several forms such as the CMM (Capability Maturity Model) and CMMI (Capability Model Integration), as well as by ISO 9001. If a supplier is ISO 9001 certified, then Palomar is confident their process maturity is sufficient to meet Palomar’s quality requirements.

One prospective supplier I recently met boast of the improvements in quality they had made for their customer due to some innovative process development on their part. This organization’s approach to quality control relied solely on personal work methods and to have only one person performing the critical process. Personal work methods are the least reliable method of process control. There is no recourse should the critical person be sick, have an accident, lapse of memory, or worse. Personal work methods do not easily scale. With personal work methods there is no documentation to train new employees. The need for process maturity is unique to the particular supplier and customer relationship. It varies with product and industry also. Aircraft and medical devices, for example, require very high levels of process maturity.

Lack of Process Development

There are times when a company may hit a roadblock in its process development. What's needed then is process development support. But even better is process development support from engineering experts who truly understand your productions equipment. Palomar Technologies Process Development Services (PDS) brings a wealth of ISO 9001 certified process and equipment consulting expertise into your quality equation. With a foundation of wire bonding and die attach system knowledge, PDS supports a large installed base of customers in over 25 countries, providing proven process expertise and a deep understanding of your production needs through one-on-one consultations. Palomar Technologies is the only machine manufacturer to offer both wire and die bonders in addition to customized product/process development and assembly services.

How Can Process Development Services Help My Company?
Download the PDS data sheet to see where your company can find the greatest benefit.

Process Development Services data sheet

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Allan Hass
Director of Engineering and Operations
Palomar Technologies, Inc.