Plant Process Control Procedure

Plant Process Control Procedures
1- General Procedures (All plants)
The auditor should inspect socks that have completed the process being audited. The auditor should not inspect socks that operator knows will be audited.

The auditor must rove the floor and not establish a routine. Operators should not be able to guess which operator will be audited next.

All audits, except packaging, will be accomplished with the auditor putting his or her hand in the sock to inspect the applicable manufacturing function. Boarding alignment should be audited before the sock is inspected for physical defects.

If a lot fails, the floor supervisor will be notified and the operator directed to 100% inspect all socks in the failed lot. See Chapter 2.3 for rework procedures. The auditor will re-audit the lot after being notified that the 100% rework has been completed. All failed audits will be documented on the Lot Rejection Form.

If a lot has been rejected, the auditor will continue auditing that operator three times in succession (the next three lots) to ensure that the problem has been resolved. After the next three lots pass, the auditor will return to random, routine auditing.

Any knitting machine that is flagged by an auditor should be re-inspected before the end of his or her shift. A failed re-inspection should be immediately reported to the knitting supervisor and the plant process control manager.

Defect levels will be maintained for each operator.

Units to audit are defined as single socks in knitting, seaming, and boarding. After pairing, nesting, inserting, or packaging, a pair of socks is a unit. Note: only 1 defect should be counted in a pair of socks, even if both socks in the pair contain defects.

2.5 Level Audits (7/13 rule). To perform accept/reject inspections at the 2.5 level for lot sizes up to 42 dozen, inspect 7 units. If zero defects are found, the lot passes. If one defect is found, inspect 13 more units. If another defect is found (2 or more defects out of the new total of 20 units), the lot is rejected.

2.5 Level Audits (20/20 rule). To perform accept/reject inspections at the 2.5 level for lot sizes between 43 and 120 dozen, inspect 20 units. If zero defects are found, the lot passes. If 1, 2, or 3 defects are found, pull another 20 socks from random areas. If 4 or more defects (from the new total of 40 socks audited), the lot is rejected.

1.5 Level Audits (20/12 rule). To perform accept/reject inspections at the 1.5 level, inspect 20 units for lot sizes up to 42 dozen. If zero defects are found, the lot passes. If one defect is found, inspect 12 more units. If another defect is found (2 or more defects out of the new total of 32 units), the lot fails. For lot sizes between 43 and 100 dozen, inspect 32 units (2 or more defects will fail the lot).

The plant manager may tighten the audit procedure from a 2.5 to a 1.5, depending on goals, customers, or areas of concern.

All plants must have a process that verifies that prepack cases do not contain shortages, overages, or substitutions. This can be accomplished by a visual check by a second operator, such as the person who tapes the cases, who verifies the accuracy of each case. Other options include additional auditors or a combination of visual inspections and weight scales.

So that defect percentages can be accurately calculated, all units in the sampling plan should be audited, even if the reject number has been reached.

2- Dyehouse/Bleach Tunnel Procedures.
All runs/dye lots will be verified under a light box using the shade standards issued by Central Lab. The Cool White Fluorescence (CWF) setting will be used for all Walmart shades; the Daylight (D65) setting will be used for all other customers. Spectrophotometer readings will be recorded for all bleach runs.

3- Boarding Audits in Automated Plants.
Each boarder will be audited at once per shift. Each audit will consist of 13 socks with 1 or less defects passing. If 2 or more defects are found, the boarder will be audited once per hour until 3 successive audits pass.

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