5 Quality Control Best Practices for Metal Fabrication

Metalworking companies get significant business from referrals, which largely impact the quality of their work. Ensuring that products going out the door conform exactly to specifications while meeting delivery deadlines can make the difference between profit and loss. Learn five quality control best practices for metal fabrication.

Quality Control and Quality Assurance

Quality control (QC) involves inspecting parts to ensure they consistently meet specifications. QC provides metalworking shops and their clients with confidence that products will do what they’re meant to do and fit where they’re supposed to go.

Quality assurance (QA) is related to QC but takes a broader view. QA involves examining all processes, from sourcing materials to the machines that produce parts, to ensure each step in the chain of production is the best it can be. All points along the road, from raw materials to finished products, should be efficient, precise, and streamlined to ensure any product that comes out of a shop is of the highest possible quality.

Safety

Attention to worker safety, as well as the safe functioning of fabricated parts, are quality control best practices for metal fabrication. Workers need an atmosphere that makes them feel safe and gives them the tools they need to produce their best work.

At the same time, products must meet international standards—where they exist—for factors like strength, flexibility, durability, water, chemical, and heat resistance, and load tolerance. Safe workers turn out safer products.

Time

Don’t make promises you can’t keep. While it’s tempting to accept a large order on a short deadline, the pressure to meet the deadline can cause mistakes and encourage employees to take shortcuts. This is especially true if your shop can’t realistically produce the work in the time allotted. Negotiate a viable timeline that you can meet with products of exceptional quality.

Software Upgrades

Modern metalworking equipment depends on computers and robots for consistency and precision. However, computers are only as good as the programs that run them. Keeping up to date with software upgrades and patches is essential to quality control.

Maintenance

Metalworking machines need maintenance to stay running as they should. Complex machinery, like a fiber laser tube cutting machine, requires vigilance in meeting regular maintenance schedules. From lubrication to replacement parts to recalibration, shops must keep their metalworking equipment in top condition to ensure quality control. Tolerances must stay within acceptable ranges, so testing and analysis should be ongoing in your metal shop.

Mac-Tech’s attention to quality in all the machinery we sell, and the services we provide, will help you maintain exceptional quality control in your metalworking operation.