QFS is a quality management tool that gives timeous feedback about product defects at specific points within the manufacturing process. Keeping track of product defects at these points can help to identify the origin of certain defects and the root problem can then be addressed. This will overall result in a better quality product.

Business Challenges

The prime focus of any manufacturing concern is to produce the maximum number/amount of product within the minimum amount of time. Often, such a concern will manufacture product on order and will thus have very strict set of deadlines to adhere to in order to keep the customer happy.

A huge headache will be to produce the product on time and still maintain a good level of quality.  Bad quality can result in scrap product being produced. Or even worse – bad quality management can result in defective or poor quality product being shipped to the customer which might lead to product recalls. All this can be very costly to the concern.

Key Features

• The system allows for the capturing of faults/defects on products/parts in real time
• It feeds the information from the customer (recorder) to the supplier (originator).
• All capturing is done via touch-screens
• Reporting includes operational real-time reporting on the shop floor as well as historical summary reporting by management
• Includes an administrative module for the configuration of the system in term of plants and production lines, models, parts, capture areas, defects, users, etc.

Customer Benefit

QFS (quality feedback system) is a much more cost effective and simpler solution than similar products on the market. It is also a local (African-based) manufactured solution which makes support and expertise much more readily available. 
Its graphical user-interface and real time processing, together with its scalability over multiple clients and suppliers; and ability to add and track multiple defects, as well its ability to link real time production throughput data to enable the system to deliver KPI’s such as defect rate, make it a sophisticated yet inexpensive system.

• This system is currently being used at VWSA.
• It was runner-up in VWSA’s innovation awards 2013 in the Business and Science Category.
• Entrant in the Innovation Price for Africa Awards 2014.

Technical Information

QFS is a Microsoft Windows-based quality management system. It consists of data capturing stations that runs on a normal Windows workstation. The information captured is stored on a database. This information is formatted in different reports which are sent to display monitors. These reports will alert specific stations about defects that originated from that point. The display monitors are also Microsoft Windows workstations.