SigmaQuest Process Visualization to Manage Product Quality

By DE Editors

SigmaQuest Inc. (Sunnyvale, CA) announced that SigmaQuest Process Flow Visualization (PFV) patent-pending software lets users quickly and easily track all phases of product development via intuitive,  simple-to-read, graphical views of data. Because the software is interactive,  users can quickly determine if their process flows are performing as intended and get to the root cause of any potential product-quality issues or product recalls.

PFV presents information in the form of intuitive graphical charts that have drill-down analytic capabilities. With this approach, military & aerospace,  computing, consumer electronics, medical devices, and other product manufacturers can quickly tell if the documented process flow is followed —  and when and where their supply chain process isn’t working. Also, they can determine if products have been built to spec, gone through all appropriate tests, if tests were skipped, if products failed in the test process (and if so where), and how many times tests were repeated. Plus they get yield indicators at each stage of product development.

With PFV,  companies can more readily conform to varying compliance and quality initiatives. For example, medical device manufacturers can begin showing compliance with the upcoming Sentinel Initiative,  whereby the FDA is seeking to monitor the performance of medical device products, sold in the U.S., throughout entire lifecycles. Alternatively, by law,  any military/aerospace or FDA manufactured product that has failed in the test process more than three times must be scrapped, says the company. PFV tracks these failure cycles. On top of this, the software tracks the digital signatures used for signoff at the completion of a test, providing contract manufacturers with accessible proof that a product has passed testing in accordance with the OEM’s specific directions.

PFV (with a monthly price starting at $5,750) comes as an add-on module to the SigmaQuest Manufacturing & Test Insight product. It is slated to be available as a bundle with other SigmaQuest SigmaSure offerings in 2009.

For details, visit SigmaQuest.

Sources:  Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.