When Henry Ford’s assembly line started rolling 100 years ago, it set the stage for controlling quality by using standardized components that virtually eliminated the manual fitting and reshaping of auto parts. Quality assurance in mass production has come a long way since then, but it remains an ongoing challenge in a high-mix, low-volume environment where the product roster is in constant flux.

Whether you have an in-house plant with small production runs of many SKUs or a job shop building disparate products to order, the variability inherent in the business can make it difficult to achieve process consistency that helps turn out near-defect-free goods. That, of course, can mean a fast track to failure.

Yet many of the principles used in large-scale manufacturing can be applied on a smaller scale to run a tight quality ship. Concepts such as eliminating nonvalue-added work and identifying processes that can be replicated are as useful in high-mix operations as on mass production lines. The rest of the quality equation in this kind of setting boils down to things like documentation and training to compensate for the constant shifts in manufacturing assignments.

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