Quality8 min read
Cpk and Ppk: what buyers should ask for
Two capability indices, two standard deviations and two different questions about whether a process can hold a tolerance.
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Sourcing notes for custom parts
Drawings, tooling, quality and landed cost, from the team that runs the programmes.
All guides, page 10
Browse the full library.
Quality10 min read
Measurement uncertainty: why a pass may still be a fail
Every reading carries a margin. How to build a small uncertainty budget, apply a decision rule and stop arguing about a result that sits on the limit.
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Quality9 min read
Profile tolerance: surface and line, and how to use them well
One control for form, orientation and location, plus the difference between a surface zone and a line zone and where each one earns its cost.
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Machining8 min read
Machining fixture review before the first cut
Most first-run arguments are settled before the spindle turns. Datum, clamping, support and access decide whether the drawing, the setup and the inspection agree.
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Quality9 min read
MSA and gauge R&R: how to tell whether a measurement can be trusted
The studies behind a measurement system, the numbers a gauge R&R produces and how to read them before a tolerance decision.
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Quality9 min read
Non-conformance reports and 8D: containment, cause and closure
The fields that make an NCR usable, the containment that protects the customer, and the eight disciplines that stop the same defect returning.
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Quality9 min read
Position tolerance and bonus tolerance, with a worked hole example
How a position zone is built, when bonus tolerance applies, and why the M modifier is not a licence to ignore the worst case.
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Quality10 min read
SPC for custom parts: control charts in low-volume production
Control charts were built for long runs. Here is how to use them on fifty-piece lots without inventing limits or overreacting to noise.
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Quality8 min read
Control plans: what to include and how to keep them useful
The columns, the three life cycle versions and the reaction plans that turn a control plan from a document into process control.
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Quality9 min read
Datums: how to choose them and why they decide the inspection
A practical method for picking datum features that match the assembly, the fixture and the CMM, with the errors that make a good callout unmeasurable.
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Quality8 min read
Incoming inspection: setting up a plan that matches the risk
A goods-in plan built on part criticality and supplier evidence, with the sample, the record and the quarantine step written down.
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Quality10 min read
Quality documentation pack for a first shipment
What belongs in the pack, what each document actually proves and the gaps that turn a first delivery into a hold at goods-in.
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Go from reading to checking
The guides are built around the same questions as the free tools. Size a busbar, check an ISO 2768 callout, build a first article report or compare landed cost.
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