Quality is king here at Hymid. We pride ourselves on manufacturing to an exceptionally high standard, and we’re always looking for ways to challenge ourselves and improve the performance of our operation.
We work to strict compliance procedures to ensure that our quality promise isn’t just paying lip service, but that it’s backed up by measurable benchmarks and a series of external audits going back nearly 10 years.
Tony Grocock is our Quality Manager. He oversees the day-to-day tasks that maintain our high-quality measures and procedures. He and his team work hard to keep our production facility working to our maximum capability. But what is quality and what is the role of quality control at Hymid? Tony says,
“Quality assurance is any systemic process of determining whether a product or service meets specified requirements. It establishes and maintains set requirements for developing or manufacturing reliable products. Quality control is product-oriented and focused on identifying quality issues in manufactured products that could affect customer satisfaction.”
It can be challenging at times, but with a keen eye for detail and a strong working methodology, Tony and the team get the job done. But we’ve also worked hard to implement responsibility in all of our staff. Like Tony says,
“Quality, as stated in our quality policy, is the responsibility of everyone here at Hymid. I think if you're a responsible company nowadays, you can't just expect people in white lab coats and clipboards walking around owning quality. Every member of the shop floor and a team here at Hymid has to own their own section and understand that they are key to the quality of the business and the products that the business puts through."
At Hymid, quality is something we have instilled in our process from inception to delivery. Hymid offers a complete development partnership service – this involves developing products from the design stage, through to the manufacture and delivery of finished parts.
Tony and his team are in place to communicate with our tooling and production staff and work with them to set quality standards to work to. Tony explains,
“We have a number of checks in place here. Going from tool trialling, we do an SSR (Sample Submission Report) process – we submit parts to the customer so they can check them for fit and function. We also sell the capability for ISIR’s (Initial Sample Inspection Reports) – where we can use our metrology room and ability to help ensure the customer is getting parts to drawing. Especially from a medical point of view – that’s really important.”
Gold Samples are really important to the management of quality across a project. Tony and his team use gold samples to ensure we keep the standards of products high – but what are gold standards?
Gold Samples are samples taken from production trials that we take when a tool arrives at Hymid. Essentially, we do a TTR, which is a Tool Trial Report. Off the back of that, the Technician conducting the trial will write documents and any information that we may need to know going forward into mass production so that the components meet the manufacturing standards agreed with the customer and the tool is suitable to run.
Working with Peter Flynn (Head of Compliance), Tony and his team have implemented a series of processes that ensure quality is measured and controlled from the first part to the last part made on any run on one of our machines, helping them work smarter and not harder to achieve quality checks. Tony explains,
“We do in-process checks every 2 hours - AQL (Acceptable Quality Limit) inspection - before it gets shipped and leaves the building. First off, last off checks. A number of good things basically in place, SPC (Statistical Process Control) charting dimensional checks, all good stuff.”
Why does this matter? How does it add value to our customers and how is SPC data a provable measure of Hymid’s quality process? Tony explains,
“It helps give our customers a level of confidence, especially when making high-tech components. Say you started a new project and you were supposed to hit a measure in the drawing, but you're unable to, and the criteria that you were supposed to meet was fit during trials and function. Going forward, you can see that you're consistently of parts isn't where it needs to be. So that's when we'll go back to the customer and work with them to overcome issues with the mould.”
Quality is something that Team Hymid takes extremely seriously. That's why our customers keep coming back to us for their new projects. They know we'll go the extra mile to help them overcome issues and that they can come to us for open, honest and transparent dialogue. And with our SGS ISO 9001 and ISO 13485 accreditation, they know our quality claims aren't just hot air, but are proof positive backed up by our QMS and dedicated Quality professionals.
If you have any further questions or would like any evidence about our quality or how we operate, you can reach out to hello@hymid.co.uk, and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible.
You can also follow Tony on LinkedIn for regular updates on Hymid, and to read his thoughts on the world of compliance.
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