Distributed Quality Control
Distributed Quality Control (DQC) of open source hardware refers to quality control performed not in centralized facilities, but by distributed microfactories. OSE is experimenting with this paradigm as a route to the open source economy of distributed manufacturing and Distributive Enterprise. The scale of production can be as small as home-scale production, or larger microfactories. Homes, schools, and small enterprises diversify into distributed manufacturing. For this, Truly Replicable Production is required. To achieve Truly Replicable Production - part of the game involves developing transparent mechanisms whereby quality control is certified by international standards bodies (UL, CE, ASME, etc) - or new entities can be created to support decentralized production (DeFab).
Engaging in DQC involves producing documentation. The most effective, digital, practical documentation is a time lapse video showing test procedures for visual examination by a reviewer.
Transparency Protocol
- A governance mechanism for DeFab (analogue of DeSci, DeFi, ReFi, etc) is to be established. Initial draft:
- Create Foundational Criteria
- open design for a product- fully accessible, complete CAD data published in an open source format on an open access public repository
- Certification organization - to manage open CAD data repositories and their standards
- Open Source design for production machinery and data collection machinery
- Open source design for production engineering
- Open source design for data collection
- Open source materials production machinery
- Open repository of published performance, test, materials science, etc data. For unequivocal identification of performance standards and their deviation
- Definitions of acceptable performance limits for 2 Sigma to 6 Sigma quality control levels
- A funding mechanism taking a minute fraction of production proceeds to maintain repositories, standards for DeFab, and training for producers interested in joining the DeFab ecosystem.
