Design Verification

Managing Expectations

This aspect of Design Verification can be encapsulated in the rather obvious question, "Are we going to manufacture and deliver a set of disc springs that when installed will perform as the customer expects?" The fact of the matter is that sometimes, the design of the disc spring application is sub-optimal or just plain wrong, and if we give them what they request, they will have something that will not work as expected. In fact, this Service that we formalised, arose from an incident, where an international Engineering company, asked us to responsd to an RFQ at the last minute, and pressured us into responding very quickly. We made what we thought was the reasonable assumption that in no way could such a well established design (a solution for a mine), not be spot on.
We realised too late that their Design/Final Load for this particular stack configuration would be inducing unsustainable stresses and that their desired life for these disc springs was unrealistic and that a design change would be required. You can imagine our discomfort at being told "Who do you think you are?", "If you can't help we'll find someone that will!", and some other less savoury comments.
But the one comment that resonated was, "How come you only told us now?". And hence the NCR (Non Conformance Reported) logged all those years ago, still has a CA (Corrective Action) that is well established in our QMS (Quality Management System), and it has been to the benefit of all interested parties, despite the occassional perceived slight, where offense has been taken (but very quickly dispelled.)
Some key take aways are:

1. There is an informal design verification step that is built into our quoting process.
2. But some customers now request some sort of verification when they are in their initial desing phase.
3. We do not charge for this service at all, and we do not even insist that the final manufacturing orders are directed to us.
4. This forms part of our Brand and the Value we add to our customers, in whose best interests we always act.

But this is based on the assumption that what is expected is the same as what is possible? And we always try our best to exceed our customer expectations and what if we can have something better than expected?

Monitoring Order Frequenccy

As we mentioned in our Understanding Fatigue pages, it is not unusual for us to pick up an issue in the operations of our customers by taking note of either the frequency with which a particular size is ordered, or taking note of the number of spares required or observing their frequency of urgent breakdowns.

When we investigate, this involves us joining our customer´s plant managers and maintenance teams and dismantling machines in situ, (this can be a messy business!!)) and conducting our failure analysis. This includes:

1. an analysis of the disc springs themselves - material composition, hardness & hardening, contact flats, radii, dimensions etc
2. the manner of installation of the disc springs - clearances, alignment, lubrication etc
3. the actual physical dynamics of the stack - pre-load and final design load and travel etc
4. a verification of the engineering design - stresses, loads etc

So by being curious and caring about our customers, we ask the right questions, provide solutions and add great value from 1) greatly reducing unscheduled downtime, 2) reducing waste and rework, and 3) reducing maintenance costs.

Analysis in a nut shell

Show me someone who doesn't make mistakes, and we'll show you someone who isn't learning, or demonstarting their curiousity as they go about doing things better.
So an essential part of our analysis is to form a dialogue and to collaborate with our customers, and this requires we provide our workings, and to produce an analysis that we can share and qualify, so that it can be tested and interrogated. Who hasn't seen such situations degenerate into a contest of egos, and we are mature enough to support the notion that insecurity is loud, brash, arrogant and deaf, where as confidence is quiet, observant, humble and open.

Simulations and FEA

The ability to consistently replicate a finding is essential to our analysis process. We find that Simulations and Finiate Element Analysis provide a very fertile arena for discussions to take place, because cognition is highly visual and communication is often flawed.

Normally we being with just a simple simulation, to verify boundary conditions and constraints, all of which are essential for the Finite Element Analysis to be consistent and add value.

What next? How can we help you?

Why not contact us and have an initial discrete discussion, if you require an NDA to be signed, this takes no more than a few minutes to action, but need not get in the way of a brief introductory meeting either by Zoom or face to face.

Of late, we find that prospective customers have been asking for our Code of Conduct before asking for anything else, before even our Quality Management System which perhaps is assumed to be established.

We take Quality really seriously, and insist that any 3rd Party Supplier Audit that needs to be conducted, is UNSCHEDULED and a surprise. The push back we get often is that they do not want to have to make a 2nd visit or waste their time, if key people are unavailable. Our response is this, Quality is a formal part of every staff member's employment contract. Quality is embedded in the day to day operations of the business. You should expect to receive consistent answers to all your questions and find evidence and proof of conformity through out the operations, starting from the articulation of what our Business Startagey is and what our Goals are, all the way to Quality Assurnance sign-offs, NCRs etc