“What did quality cost us last quarter?”
Scrap and rework get logged as events, not money. By the time finance asks, the unit prices are gone and the answer is a guess with a decimal point on it.
Quality management for manufacturing
Every Nonconformance Costs You.Recurrence Costs You More.
ProQualityLabs records the defect once, prices it as it is recorded, pushes it to root cause only when it needs one, and shows the cost of poor quality falling. Scattered records become a single thread anyone can follow — and a number you can manage.
Nothing is charged today. You see the price before you check out.
- Not four times, in four places
- Written down once
- Not estimated at year end
- Priced at the source
- Not on every single report
- Root cause when needed
The everyday bottleneck
The defect is not the problem. Your quality data is already somewhere, scattered. That is the problem.
Disposition records in a binder by the nonconformance crib. Root cause in a Word template that never got a verified cause or a countermeasure. Calibration due dates in a separate spreadsheet. Each one is fine on its own. Together they mean nobody can answer the only question that matters.
“Did we ever fix the cause?”
The 8D got filled in because the customer asked for it. Six months later the same part fails the same way, and nobody can find the corrective action, let alone whether it worked.
“Is that gage still in calibration?”
The sticker says March. The Spreadsheet says April. The part it just measured shipped Tuesday. Now you are working out how far back the recall goes.
“Can you pull up the trend?”
How many nonconformances were recorded last month, and what did they cost? The counts sit in one spreadsheet, the approx dollar amounts in another, and neither one is ever plotted. Twelve months of quality, and not a single line anyone can point at.
Breadcrumbs
One defect. Multiple records. No trail.
The disposition record is on one form. The root cause is on a different form, if anybody wrote one. The cost is in a spreadsheet. Nothing links them, so nothing adds up. ProQualityLabs keeps the whole defect on one record — and will not let you close it half-finished.
How it is recorded today
Multiple records of one defect, and nothing joins them up. Ask what it cost, and somebody goes looking. Ask whether it has happened before, and nobody knows.
How it is recorded in ProQualityLabs
One record of one defect. Ask what it cost, and the number is already there. Ask whether it has happened before, and the answer is a chart.
How it works
One record, from the machine to the month-end number
What broke, what it cost, whether anyone looked into why, and how it ended — all of it on the same record, written down once. Priced once. Closed once.
- 01
Recorded once
At the machine, on one record.
Plant-scoped NCR number issued automatically. Areas, quantities and dispositions on the same form — no second spreadsheet.
- 02
Priced immediately
Cost, while the detail is still fresh.
Unit price and overhead go on as it is written up. The server recalculates COPQ, so the total can never drift from the quantities underneath it.
- 03
Investigated when it matters
Root cause where it earns its keep.
Every report gets a decision: start an RCA, or close it with a written reason. A repeat defect cannot quietly skip the investigation.
Root cause requiredClosed with a reason - 04
Closed on evidence
Not on somebody initialling it.
Completing the RCA does not close the NCR by itself, and an ineffective corrective action blocks completion. The thread stays readable afterwards.
And the number moves
Every closed report has a cost attached, so the cost of poor quality is a live figure on the plant dashboard rather than a year-end reconstruction.
Cost of poor quality
Most systems count defects. ProQualityLabs prices them.
Every nonconformance carries a unit price and an optional overhead rate, and the server recalculates COPQ on save so the number cannot drift from the record. It rolls up to the plant dashboard, and for multi-plant companies, to a ranked view across every branch.
Costed at the source
The person recording the discrepancy records the quantity and the unit price. COPQ is derived, not typed, so the total always matches the detail underneath it.
Visible to the right people only
Unit price, overhead, COPQ, possible root cause and disposition are privileged fields. Plant roles need an explicit capability to see them — on the list, the record and the totals.
Trended, not just totalled
Twelve-month trend, ranked six-month causes and a weekly view, so you can tell a bad month from a bad process.
Ranked across plants
Company admins see every branch side by side — COPQ, open NCRs, RCAs in flight and overdue gages — without logging into each one.
What is inside
Three modules that already know about each other
A nonconformance can demand a root cause. A root cause cannot be completed on a corrective action that did not work. A gage that is out of calibration is visible from the same dashboard as the scrap it might have caused. That is the point.
Non-conformance reports
The defect, the cost and the decision in one record
Stop reconciling three spreadsheets and multiple paper forms to close one report.
Discrepancy quantities by area and dispositions for rework, use-as-is, ship-short and scrap — so the number of pieces actually shipping is a figure on the report, not something worked out on the dock. The moment a NCR gets recorded on a customer's order, sales gets notified from the system in time to get the short quantity approved before it ships.
- Sales knows beforehand so the short shipping quantity can be approved before it ships without a delay
- Approvers notified as soon as a NCR is recorded, so that the decision can be made on dispositions and root cause without a delay
- Rework / use-as-is / ship-short / scrap dispositions with free-text rows
- COPQ recalculated server-side from unit price and overhead cost, so the total cannot drift from the quantities underneath it
Root cause analysis
8D and structured RCA your customer will accept
The investigation your customer asked for, finished and evidenced.
Root cause is not a form one person fills in on Friday. ProQualityLabs gives the team a shared workspace: quality, engineering and the floor work the same record at the same time, you can see who else is in it, and the discussion sits on the investigation instead of in six separate inboxes. Underneath it is a workspace built for the method rather than a blank document — 5W2H, a six-M fishbone, 5-Why chains, a process flowchart made from your own plant steps.
- A named team on every RCA — the investigation will not complete without one
- Live presence and in-place comments: you see who else is in the workspace, and the thread stays on the record
- A named approver returns it with change requests instead of rejecting it, so the team keeps the thread
- 8D D1–D8 stepper, or Standard RCA — chosen at initiation
- Fishbone, 5-Why, 5W2H, PDCA and a plant-process flowchart
- Occurrence vs escape root cause, with the verification evidence
- Completion blocked while a corrective action is ineffective or monitoring-only
Gages & calibration
Nothing measures a shipped part on an expired gage
Know what is due before the auditor does.
A live inventory of every gage and master standard with its interval, status and colour code, measurements captured against the right tool type, and a weekly digest that lands in an inbox instead of waiting for somebody to open the binder.
- Gage and master-standard inventory with calibration intervals
- Status and colour coding you can see at a glance
- Measurement capture typed to the tool
- Weekly calibration digest, to as many people as you choose
- Overdue counts surfaced on the plant and company dashboards
How it fits
One company. Every plant. Roles that match your org chart.
A company holds its plants; a plant holds its people. Scoping is applied on every query, and roles are built from a feature-by-action matrix rather than a fixed set of tiers.
Company
See every plant ranked side by side — COPQ, open NCRs, RCAs in flight, overdue gages — and drill into any one of them. Read-only on plant quality records by default.
Plant
Runs its own numbering, its own departments and tool types, and its own dashboard. Data is scoped to the branch on every query.
People
Build roles against a feature-by-action matrix and arrange them into an org chart. A role can view NCRs without ever seeing cost, or approve them without touching settings.
The boring parts, described exactly
How it holds up
Per-plant scoping
Plant users see their own plant. Every route filters by company and branch, and the NCR and RCA routes have integration tests that try to cross that boundary and are refused.
Permissions by feature and action
A matrix, not a handful of fixed tiers. Seeing cost is its own capability, separate from seeing the record.
Managed identity
Sign-in runs on Firebase Authentication. No password hashing of our own to get wrong.
Traceable investigations
Every root cause analysis carries an activity log — who changed what, when, who approved it and what they were shown.
Questions
Straight answers
The questions worth asking before you move quality records into any system.
Still have a question?
Ask it on a demo, against your own parts, or send it over.
What is COPQ and how does ProQualityLabs calculate it?
COPQ is the cost of poor quality — what a defect actually costs you once scrap, rework and the labour around it are counted. In ProQualityLabs each nonconformance carries a unit price and an optional overhead rate, and the server recalculates the total on save so it always matches the quantities on the record. Those totals roll up to the plant dashboard and across plants.
Does ProQualityLabs support 8D?
Yes. Root cause analysis is a first-class module, not a form attached to an NCR. You can run a full 8D from D1 to D8 or a Standard RCA, with a fishbone, 5-Why chains, 5W2H, PDCA and a process flowchart, and export a PDF for the customer. An RCA can stand alone or be linked to a nonconformance.
Can I control who sees cost information?
Yes, and it is enforced on the server rather than hidden in the UI. Unit price, overhead, COPQ, possible root cause, caused-by, disposition and advised-by are privileged fields. A plant role needs an explicit capability to read them, and that applies to the list, the individual record and the dashboard totals alike.
We run several plants. Is the data separated?
Yes. Plant users only ever see their own plant: every route filters by company and branch, and the NCR and RCA routes carry integration tests that attempt to read and write across that boundary and are refused. Company administrators can see across their own plants, but are read-only on plant quality records by default. Scoping is applied in the application layer rather than by the database, so it is a reviewed convention rather than a hard guarantee.
How does calibration tracking work?
You keep an inventory of gages and master standards with their calibration intervals, statuses and colour codes, and capture measurements against the right tool type. A weekly digest emails what is coming due or overdue to whichever of your people you pick — there is no cap on how many — and the counts appear on the plant and company dashboards.
Can we get our records out?
Root cause analyses export to PDF and dashboard charts download as images. Nonconformances currently import from Excel but have no bulk export — if you need one, say so on the demo and we will tell you where it sits.
What happens to our data?
Your quality records live in your own tenant and are scoped to your company and plants. ProQualityLabs runs on Google Cloud, with Firebase Authentication for sign-in, MongoDB Atlas for records and Google Cloud Storage for uploaded images. The demo form on this page stores only what you type into it, and is used to contact you about a demo. See the privacy notice for the detail.
How do we get started?
Start the free trial. You confirm your email, enter your company details, and your admin account is created the moment checkout completes — then you add your plants, roles and users yourself. If you would rather see it first, book a demo and we will walk through ProQualityLabs using your own part numbers and a real nonconformance.
Book a demo
See it on your own parts.
Thirty minutes, screen shared, no slide deck. Bring a nonconformance you closed last month and we will walk it end to end — cost, root cause, corrective action, closure.
- We run it against one of your real nonconformances, not a canned demo part.
- You see exactly how COPQ is calculated and who is allowed to see it.
- If ProQualityLabs is the wrong fit for how you work, we will say so.
What happens next
- 1
You send the form
A minute of typing. Nothing is charged and nothing is set up yet.
- 2
We reply within one business day
To line up a time that suits the people who should be in the room.
- 3
Thirty minutes, on your parts
Screen shared, no slide deck — one of your nonconformances, end to end.
Book a 30-minute demo
We reply within one business day.