The Deburring Process

In manufacturing, we usually think of a “burr” as an unwanted piece of material from machining operations, such as grinding, cutting, drilling, milling, or turning. But in my quality vernacular, a “Burr” is any byproduct of an operation that is unneeded and has a risk to the product or process being created. The deburring process is a critical function if we are truly seeking total quality.

The car dealership sells you a car and charges you a prep fee, yet leaves manufacturing warning label on the windows that require an industrial solvent and an hours labor to remove. In manufacturing we need to ask ourselves, are we passing on unfinished processes to our end user?

As a medical device packaging machine provider, our aim is to thwart technological burrs that may slow our customers’ packaging validation process. It seems obvious to have a “ready-to-go” product or service, it is effectively just separating the wheat from the chaff, but often this tertiary step is missed. Look at your product through the lens of your end user and ask the hard question is my product actually finished and devoid of burrs?