The market for high quality tools is growing at a higher rate than other software markets. Much innovation comes from outside United States. This results to vendors of high quality tools being challenged by people who have international focus and propensity of designing and using data quality services which is based on business rules that are centrally managed. However, with increase in trend towards embedding tools for data integration, competitors face challenges in their growth and survival. (Bregard, 1996 pp17-19). What is tooling in product development?
This is a set of tools for developing product used to support development process from the initial stages of defining the needs of customers through developing control plans in order to start production. The tooling includes detailed instructions, description of each technique, guidelines and examples that illustrates how the tools are used. Products are planned according to their specific characteristics that are required in manufacturing process. This begins by getting the customers voice, performing competitive analysis and planning specific characteristics of products to maximize value of customer.
(Seth, 2000 pp100-115). Naming and elaborating on some quality issues in tooling Tooling is designed to know how it should look like; it is engineered and tested by technical team that is experienced using latest facilities. This is done by production teams and potential customers to identify modifications quickly and implement them to obtain a quality and accurate extrusion. Customers are assisted from initial design up to the final production by giving them advice on necessary modifications.
When skills are available, there is rapid response to requests of customers to provide efficient service at the right time. Quality management system ensures sequential verifiable quality with continuity checks. This begins from enquiry up to final production with customers approving key stages where color, fit, special features and finish are monitored closely so that they can professionally address any quality issue that may arise. (Deck, 1995 pp10-13). From what aspect does low quality tooling differ from tooling of higher quality?
Low quality tooling are unsafe and unreliable because the user of the tools may not be secure due to its low quality and may wear out in the process of using it while high quality tooling is reliable and safety of fault tolerant systems and have variety of techniques that can be used. Low quality tooling have few techniques to be used in analyzing different system parts while high quality tooling can use different techniques in analyzing different parts in a system where it decomposes large complex models into sub models and using different technique on each sub model.
Low quality tooling have models that are not valid while high quality tooling have valid models that are interpreted correctly and modeling constructs are precisely defined. (Leonard, 1994 pp122-123). How does low quality tooling differ from tooling of higher quality? Low quality tooling has high cost of maintenance and repair because its parts are weak and produce low quality products while high quality tooling reduces costs and produce high quality products.
Low quality tooling produce inferior results that do not meet expectations of the customers while, high quality tooling produces the best results that satisfy customers need all the time. Low quality tooling are less costly and it is lasts for very short time while, high quality tooling is expensive and long lasting. (Owen, 1998 pp148-151)> How does this affect the final product? Low quality tooling brings about low quality final product which may not be demanded by many customers. The customers fail to purchase it and it end up selling at low cost which is a loss to the producer.
The revenue generated from the final product is low because customers can only purchase it if its price is low. The final product of high quality tooling is of high quality and demanded by most customers because it satisfies customers’ needs. This final product brings about high returns because customers are willing and able to purchase it at high cost because of high quality. (Bregard, 1996 pp165-167). Conclusion Organizations and industries are aware of general costs and risks incurred in having low quality tooling.
They are looking for measures of improving and monitoring their quality of output and market for high quality tools in order to increase growth and innovation. High quality tooling is highly demanded by technology buyers and vendors in the market and this result to growth at a high pace. Entry of larger vendors changes competitive landscape and raises questions on how quality tools would be in the long run. (Humphrey, 2000 pp11-13).
REFERENCES
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