Much of their funding requests for new measuring equipment, computer technology, and statistical software packages are based on becoming more quality competitive. If, however, you visit modern Japanese and North American manufacturing facilities, the differences in the amount of resources for data collection are staggering. Consider the following examples from automotive body assembly operations. Japanese manufacturers, on the other hand, may regularly measure framed-bodies but rarely the subassemblies or detail components. One Japanese manufacturer only measures subassemblies about once every six months unless a specific problem arises.
Several reasons explain why some manufacturers commit relatively few resources for measuring parts.
First, these manufacturers maintain that if they verify their equipment is setup properly and that the settings for their processes have not changed, then the product output dimensions should not change. Second, even if they measure parts and find them discrepant, they would still need to examine the process settings or raw material to find the cause of the problem. This phenomenon occurs when so much data is collected that effective analysis of all the information is virtually impossible. One question is why North American companies are collecting so much more product measurement data. The basic intent of data collection and reporting is to monitor process performance and to help solve quality problems.