Quality Systems

We use Advanced Product Quality Planning (APQP) to vet new products and processes and drive continuous improvement for your parts program. APQP is one of the Core Tools of quality in the automotive industry. The others include:

• Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA)
• Measurement Systems Analysis (MSA)
• Statistical Process Control (SPC)
• Production Part Approval Process (PPAP)

At LMC, we employ all five of these core tools to maintain compliance with IATF 16949. But even if you’re not in the automotive industry, your quality will benefit from our best practices and structured approach.

Obtaining PPAP approval is a complex process that requires a lot of documentation and verification. We make it easier for you to start new programs or change suppliers due to our expertise in navigating the approval process. Whether it’s Level 1 or Level 5, we work hard to make the whole process as easy on you as possible.

Creating an error-proofed manufacturing process reduces your risk and helps production run smoothly. We blend time-tested quality principles and technology to accomplish both.

• Camera technology monitors many of our lines, including higher volume ones that produce our finished seat belt tongues. The vision system looks for dings, scratches, or defects in the chrome plating that human eyes are prone to miss.
• In tooling design and part assembly, we employ poka-yoke principles to prevent mistakes. Poka-yoke is a Japanese principle that refers to any mechanism in a process that prevents human error.  
• We use photo spectrometers and gloss meters in our plastics operations to ensure the color and finish of your products matches with your standard.

In your first article inspections, our quality technicians take sample parts to take critical measurements and testing. We will use our photo spectrometers and gloss meters during this process if they are applicable to the part being measured. We will also perform tensile testing on metal parts. Once we have approval to proceed with production, we regularly take samplings of your parts to make sure that we are maintaining appropriate quality.

We use a variety of different tools to measure your parts, and we sometimes make our own depending on the testing requirements. Equipment we use includes:

• Go/no-go gauges
• Calipers
• Micrometers
• Dial indicators
• Dimensional gauging
• Spectrometers
• Gloss meters