You’ve seen the commercial: an individual lying in bed, and the only thing that can rouse him or her from slumber is the smell of savory coffee roasting. It goes without saying that coffee customers are very loyal and rely on the taste, smell and density of their favorite type of roast to ensure a smooth start to their day.
The last thing that a coffee manufacturer wants is for one of its loyal customers to wake up expecting to be comforted by their favorite drink, only to be let down. If that cup of coffee does not meet their expectations, you’d better believe that the next time that person goes to the store they will remember the awful day that ensued after drinking it.
A bad batch of coffee can cost a company a lot of money. Because, chances are, it won’t just be one pound that is affected. Maybe it will be a 10-pound batch, or even thousands of pounds of bad beans that are distributed to customers across the country, or the world. Perhaps a recall will even be necessary to prevent the beans from spreading again.
And it’s not just the beans that are at risk. Coffee maker manufacturers, for that matter, are at risk too. In fact, in August, 2012, a leading coffee maker distributor had to recall more than 600,000 coffee machines in the U.S. and Canada due to a steam build up in the machine’s water tank. This resulted in 61 burns to the faces of customers, as well as their upper bodies and hands. Further, at least 164 people reported that the built up steam caused the lid above the water tank to open.
So, if avoiding unhappy customers and product recalls are one of your main manufacturing priorities, you need a method of preventing these catastrophes before they happen—and you need to be able to manage it either on-the go or from a central server. Manufacturing quality software relies on real-time production statistics as products are moving down conveyor belts and into packages.
Whether your company bags beans or makes the machines that customers and businesses rely on, what you need is a method of ensuring that the quality of your production remains consistently stable.