Right first time (RFT) is a manufacturing process used to reduce waste and improve quality. RFT aims to ensure that the first product that comes off the production line meets quality standards and is sent to customers on time.
Right first time is used across various industries but is primarily adopted by manufacturers, engineers, and maintenance teams.
For example, in product development, it's used by engineers to minimize the number of product defects or issues. Product development is costly, so to reduce rework, scrap, and changes, teams use RFT principles that allow engineers to review their work diligently and validate their design decisions.
Some of the most common RFT principles are:
A first time right score is the number of defects per million opportunities. It's used to measure process efficiency in manufacturing. The score is calculated by dividing the number of defects by the number of opportunities. You define your opportunities as things that could go wrong with a product or process (like assembly errors). If you have 1 million opportunities and 100 defects, then your first time right score will be 99%.
First you need to focus on improving your:
A good way of getting started is by making a list of all the steps involved in carrying out a particular task or project, then identifying those areas where there are opportunities for improvement.
For example, if you're a discrete manufacturer and make parts for a car dashboard, you must list all the detailed steps from start to finish in creating this dashboard. You may find a few inefficiencies in these steps, and this is where you can make changes. Once the process changes are implemented, you can track your current production volume against your previous (before the changes were made) to see if the RFT principles are working.
RFT measures how often you get product development right the first time. It's an important indicator of your manufacturing performance, and it can be used to track progress against your RFT targets.
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