From a data collection standpoint, you have the cheapest method to
use - don't collect anything and let you customers tell you what they think
of your quality.
        Unless you are very good, or lucky, this won't work for long. If I
were in your situation, I would start by coming up with a common set of
nonconformances and track them as well as pass/fail information on paper
tick sheets at each of your process steps and enter it into Excel each
shift/day, etc.
        Once you look at the data, come up with your first pass yield metric
and then pareto your nonconformances. Show your data to your production
folks so they know why they are entering it and start to use the data to fix
problems. If you have multiple inspection points, multiply those yields
together to get your total line yield. Then go find a finance person to tell
you what the cost of that yield and those nonconformances are and use that
figure, with your data, to convince your management to buy one of those
"more then they want to spend" software products that will do this in real
time. I bet you will save a bundle and have happier customers as well.

Regards,
Chris

-----Original Message-----
From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of [log in to unmask]
Sent: Friday, July 02, 2004 5:05 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [TN] Failure Reporting

Where I am working we have no means of collecting/tracking system failures
onour
units.  I was wondering what other companies are using to track this
information?  I know there are a number of software products on the market
but
the cost is more than the company wants to spend.  Can someone direct me to
the
cheapest method to use?

Thanks in advance
Have a safe holiday

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