The Quality Performance Kit Handbook
A complete monthly system for measuring quality in an aerospace supply shop: what to measure, how to collect it, how to tell a real change from noise, what it costs, and how to report it so management decides something.
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The problem it solves
Most small aerospace shops have plenty of quality data and very little quality information. Delivery is in the ERP, NCRs in a log, the customer's rating in a portal, corrective actions in a spreadsheet, scrap cost in finance's monthly report. Each is looked at alone, if at all; percentages are averaged when they should be added up; a bad month triggers a corrective action and a quiet, steady decline goes unnoticed until a customer's scorecard shows it. This handbook is the operating manual for the Quality Performance Kit. It sets out one monthly cycle, from counts to decisions, the people who run it, which tool to use at each step, how to read what the numbers say, and how to set the whole thing up in thirty days with what you already have.
Who it is for
Quality directors and quality managers who report quality performance, and the general managers and plant managers who use it to run the business.
When to use it
When your monthly quality report is a pile of charts that leads to no decisions; when a customer's scorecard surprised you; when you take over a quality function; or a quarter before management review has to show trends and objectives it doesn't have yet.
How to use this handbook
- Read chapters 1 to 3: why quality reporting fails, the kit's tools, and the monthly cycle they run.
- Agree the roles in chapter 4 with your general manager, especially who owns each measure.
- Choose your measures and targets with chapters 5 to 7, and write them on the KPI register (AQL-F10).
- Follow the thirty-day setup in chapter 15, using the tools named in each week.
- Run the monthly quality meeting in chapter 14 from the first month.
- Read the worked example in chapter 16 to see every tool used on one month at Meridian.
- Give your general manager the one-page summary in chapter 18; keep the quick reference in chapter 19 at hand.
The chapters
- 1Why quality reporting failsEvery shop we have worked with reports something about quality every month. The trouble is rarely a lack of data.
- 2The kit and how its tools connectThe Quality Performance Kit is seven tools that feed each other. The dashboard (AQL-F08) is the front page: twelve…
- 3The monthly quality performance cycleEvery month moves through the same steps, in the same week. The shaded boxes are checks: Yes continues down, No goes…
- 4Who does whatA performance system needs an owner for the system and an owner for every measure.
- 5Choosing what to measureMeasures sit at three levels, and mixing them up is the most common reason a dashboard grows to forty lines.
- 6Collecting the dataCollect counts, never percentages: lines shipped and lines shipped on time, lots inspected and lots accepted first…
- 7Setting targets and watch limitsA target says where the business wants a measure to be. Set it from one of four starting points, and write down which…
- 8Reading performance: change or noiseEvery monthly figure moves. Product mix, holidays, one large order and plain chance move it.
- 9NCR trends: finding the one problem worth fixingThe NCR trend analysis (AQL-F09) is where the monthly meeting finds its corrective action.
- 10What poor quality costsThe cost of poor quality (AQL-F11) puts the system in the language management uses to decide.
- 11Objectives that get doneQuality objectives are the few results the business commits to for the year. The objectives register (AQL-F10) holds…
- 12Corrective action health and audit readinessTwo systems decide, more than any others, how an audit or a customer review goes: corrective action and the everyday…
- 13Reporting upChaired by the general manager, sixty minutes, the same day each month. The scorecard is the front page; everything…
- 14The rhythmSummary counts: on target, watch, off target, getting worse (5 minutes). Off-target lines, worst first: what moved it…
- 15Setting it up in thirty daysYou will not have perfect data in week two, and you don't need it. Twelve months loaded with honest gaps, marked as…
- 16Worked example: one month at Meridian, through the whole kitMeridian Aerostructures machines aerostructure housings, brackets, manifolds and skin panels, with about a $12 million…
- 17Common pitfalls, and how we avoid themPitfall: Averaging percentages; Chasing noise; Totals only; Moving targets; Composite scores; Quality owns every…
- 18For your general manager: one pageFill this in and hand it over. It says what changes, what you need and what they will see.
- 19Quick referenceCycle; Measures; Collect; Status; Signal; Stratify; Act; Cost; Objectives; Targets; Escalate; Weekly; Never.
- 20Where the kit touches AS9100DClause numbers only; read the requirements in your own copy of the standard. The kit is a way of meeting them in…
Aegis Insights: how we approach this work
Aegis Insights are our own guidance: how we approach this work and why, from years inside aerospace quality systems. They are not requirements of any standard or customer.
Definitions
| Term | What it means here |
|---|---|
| Headline measure | One of about a dozen measures watched every month against a target on the scorecard. |
| Diagnostic | A more detailed view opened when a headline measure moves: a Pareto, a split by shift, a cost breakdown. |
| Quality objective | A result the business commits to for the year, with a measure, target, date, owner, resources and actions. |
| KPI register | The list of every measure management sees, each defined once with its owner and source. |
| Target | The level chosen for a measure, set and changed at management review. |
| Watch limit | How far short of the target a measure can be before it counts as off target. |
| Signal | A change unlikely to be chance: a point above a control limit or a long run on one side of the center line. |
| Noise | Month-to-month movement that comes from ordinary variation, not from a change in the process. |
| Stratify | Split a total by a factor to see whether one part of it behaves differently. |
| Pareto | Categories sorted largest first, to show the few that account for most of the total. |
| Cost of poor quality | Prevention, appraisal, internal failure and external failure costs, together. |
| Improvement case | One problem's yearly cost, the action to fix it, its cost, the payback and the check. |
| Recovery report | A fixed-format report on a serious quality problem, repeated until agreed closure criteria are met. |
| Monthly quality meeting | The 60-minute meeting where the month's performance is read and every off-target line gets an owner and an action. |
Need more than one resource, or not sure where to start? Book a complimentary 30-minute Aegis Quality Guidance Call. We'll find the tools that fit your situation and a sensible place to start. No sales pressure, no obligation.
The measures, targets, collection days and meeting length here are starting points; fit them to your products and volumes, and put your customers' own measures and definitions first where they score you.
A management aid, not certification or a registrar audit. Using it does not by itself show conformity to AS9100D or any other standard, and your customers' requirements may add to it.
Clause numbers refer to AS9100D (SAE AS9100 Rev D) unless another document is named. The standards' text is not reproduced here: use your own licensed copy.