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Nathan Sheaff is CEO of Sciemetric Instruments (Ottawa, Canada), a developer of process-monitoring and quality-management systems and software used by automotive, medical, and industrial manufacturing operations.
Manufacturing Engineering: What do testing systems offer manufacturers today?
Nathan Sheaff: Today's test systems offer more than simple quality verification on a production line. Advanced manufacturers are using these systems as windows into their manufacturing processes, to gain insight on how to optimize them to deliver the best return-on-investment [ROI] in terms of yield and overall costs. The greater the visibility into the behavior of a manufacturing process, the more nimbly manufacturers can respond to anomalies, identify problems, address them, and conduct other improvements leading to high quality and productivity.
ME: Describe Sciemetric's manufacturing test system and related software.
Sheaff: Sciemetric has developed an overall system for quality management that combines real-time signature analysis from manufacturing operations with data storage and analytics to rapidly mine data and make faster and better decisions. This 'Quality Operating System' consists of a technology platform with both hardware and software components that has enabled some of the world's largest automotive, medical, and industrial manufacturers to gain visibility into, and greater control over, their manufacturing processes. Traditionally, many manufacturing systems rely upon end-of-line functional test to control quality and to verify that a product has been made correctly. While this is important, it alone is...