Rexam Beverage Cans Packed With Quality
Lighthouse Systems’ Shopfloor-Online

As one of the world’s largest manufacturers of beverage cans, Rexam’s quality processes must be above reproach, lest industry giants like Coca-Cola and Dr. Pepper begin to receive complaints about their products. In order to maintain and improve quality standards, Rexam sought to replace its existing quality monitoring system with a new program that could report on local plant operations as well as all 19 U.S. Rexam can plants.

Although Rexam already had a quality management system in place at each plant, the company was faced with a host of areas for improvement. At each plant, the history of data retention was limited. In addition, the company was unable to enforce its own standards for data collection and reporting. Finally, reporting and analyzing data across the plant was growing increasingly difficult to accomplish. Rexam decided that a new quality monitoring system would remedy the blemishes on its otherwise sound processes and chose to replace its system with the Shopfloor-Online solution from Lighthouse Systems Inc.

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Back to School: Teachers, Students Learn Quality
PQ Systems Training and Consulting Services

Although much is made of quality initiatives in the manufacturing industry, the movement is also chipping away at the often-flawed edifice of educational methodology. Vision systems and laser scanners track component assembly on production lines from the beginning to the end, but similar systems are unavailable to ensure that a sixth-grader has completed his math homework. Instead, many students are subjected to a traditional pre-test/post-test routine, which gauges the effectiveness of an educational regimen by comparing initial and eventual knowledge levels. Not all schools are content with this educational crapshoot, however. At Pekin Public School 108 in Pekin, Illinois, the tide has turned and a qualitative sea change continues to swell.

Pam Rosa, the principal at Pekin 108, already had a handful of quality tools in her arsenal when she began working with PQ Systems’ trainer Sally Duncan several years ago. What she didn’t have--and what her institution lacked--was a verified improvement cycle within which to implement those tools. Pekin 108 displayed all of the earmarks for potential quality resurgence: an enthusiastic staff, buy-in from the superintendent and room for improvement. Duncan and PQ Systems brought the school the plan-do-study-act system.

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