Question:

I was wondering if you may have any information on ‘best practices’ regarding measurement devices? Ultimately we are looking to see what an acceptable weekly delivery rate of tools would be to our calibration lab.

We currently have 2300 tools on our shop floor and have tools delivered to our calibration lab weekly via schedule. Our goal is to have 90% on time delivery rate. We were wondering if that was a suitable goal.

We had a finding in our last external audit and are working on applying 5S to all of our area, however that is a long term project so the corrective action is still open.

Thanks,

– Anonymous

Answer:

That is a lot of equipment to monitor and control! The rate of delivery to the calibration lab is going to depend on several factors.

How do you have your calibrations scheduled?  How frequently are devices removed from service and verified? Do you have extra devices so that some are in for calibration while others are in use?

I have worked with facilities that have this level of complexity in their situation. Normally, they have a pool of devices available to conduct a rotation. Using a colour code with a different colour for each month, the Lead Hands retrieve all devices coded for that month, and submit them to the Calibration Lab. They then take up-to-date devices back out to run the lines. That establishes the Lab workload for the month. Devices immediately located are checked off the “Due List”. Any not found are the subject of a search based on last known location, and must be calibrated prior to the end of the month.

The calibration schedule should be based on usage of the devices, and frequency with which they need to actually be adjusted. Each device should be tracked, and scheduled based on actual history. Hopefully, you are using a database for tracking and recording the process which can assist with the analysis, and locating devices due for calibration.

Hope this helps.

– Ted Uffen, BRC Consultant

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