Hello All,

I am looking for suggestions in putting some teeth into our Non-Conformance Program. We currently generate a Non-Conformance form when we have produced material that is Non-Conforming. The Non-Conformance Report (NCR) defines the description of the non-conformance, is submitted for a Short Term Disposition and subsequent rework, and then the applicable department supervisor is to follow through on Root Cause with the individual and finally determine Long Term Corrective Action - which historically has been worthless. First and foremost, I am planning a higher level of involvement in digging root cause, and implementing some type of corrective action. I also need to be more involved in the process in the first person.

We have flat lined over the past four years, with no improvement in decreasing the number of NCRs - which is one of my primary goals for 2008.

I would like to add a "Rating" to all NCRs for 2008, to identify the critical level of the NCR. A rating of 1 would be least critical to say 4, which would be most critical. Does anyone have any examples, ideas, suggestions, or horror stories about a similar type rating?

Are there any suggestions anyone can make to help improve our system?

Thanks in advance!

How's the upper management committment to the program?
When departments get NCR's are they held accountable or do they just blow it off. Does management hold departments to NCR goals?

I'm not keen on ratings... too subjective in a lot of cases.
However - you CAN attach a dollar value.
That will certainly get management's attention.

How's the upper management committment to the program?
When departments get NCR's are they held accountable or do they just blow it off. Does management hold departments to NCR goals?

I'm not keen on ratings... too subjective in a lot of cases.
However - you CAN attach a dollar value.
That will certainly get management's attention.

Yes. It's necessary at some point to find out what all of this is costing, and present numbers preceded by dollar signs to management.

Thanks for the responses.

Managemtent Comittment is there (I hope, I am part of it!)

My primary focus is to make the impression on our shop personnel. For the last several years, the Root Cause and Long Term Corrective Action process has been along the lines of - "Operator made mistake" and "Operator will not make mistake again". We have a very unusually high length of service in the shop (25-40 year range). The NCR system was always reported, but there has not been a follow through process for eliminating the problems. I need the idea of getting a NCR for work completed is a serious issue with the operators. I need to get the respective supervisors to assist in changing the mind set of the operator. I have some dollar values to sling around, but my focus is to implement a revamp an worthless program.

How's the upper management committment to the program?
When departments get NCR's are they held accountable or do they just blow it off. Does management hold departments to NCR goals?

I'm not keen on ratings... too subjective in a lot of cases.
However - you CAN attach a dollar value.
That will certainly get management's attention.

Absolutely attach $$ value on each rejection but one can go further.

Reflect your company into cost centers. As an example, we might have the stamping department, welding, assembly, purchasing and design. Do NOT include Quality as a cost center since it, along with Process Engineering and Maintenance are support services.

All rejections, costs and corrective actions are a responsibility of the offending department. This is the way it always should have been but somehow Quality started taking on some of this load.

Presenting this concept is tough though. I would have an easier time as a Consultant rather than a Quality Manager with the presentation. As a Consultant, I would (and have) talk to the General Manager on a one to one basis. Go through a Quality Cost system and reflect the benefits and the tremendous opportunity to positively affect the bottom line without increasing the sales value.

Progress on reducing rework and scrap can only be achieved if the responsible departments are interested and that will only become a reality if they take the financial responsibility of their scrap and rework.

Thanks for the responses.

Managemtent Comittment is there (I hope, I am part of it!)

My primary focus is to make the impression on our shop personnel. For the last several years, the Root Cause and Long Term Corrective Action process has been along the lines of - "Operator made mistake" and "Operator will not make mistake again". We have a very unusually high length of service in the shop (25-40 year range). The NCR system was always reported, but there has not been a follow through process for eliminating the problems. I need the idea of getting a NCR for work completed is a serious issue with the operators. I need to get the respective supervisors to assist in changing the mind set of the operator. I have some dollar values to sling around, but my focus is to implement a revamp an worthless program.

Who takes part in the corrective action process? If the onus is being put on the operator to do the root cause and corrective action analysis, that is the wrong way to go, unless they are the ones responsible for the design of the processes that they perform. Don't get me wrong, I think the people doing the work are a great resource for the corrective action team since they do the tasks day in and day out, but they are not put in that position to troubleshoot the process, but to follow it. If the process allows for a problem to occur, then it is up to management and engineering to determine what the cause was and how it can be prevented (if possible or practical).

One thing I might suggest if you're getting a lot of repeat problems, or similar problems on various processes is to focus your corrective action team on topics rather than specific occurrences. Look at the larger picture. For example, if you experience frequent material contamination on various jobs, focus on that, using specific instances for information. Find out what your most common/most expensive problems are and attack them.

My primary focus is to make the impression on our shop personnel.
Why them? Why not focus on those who are most likely responsible for the attitudes of the shop personnel?

True Cliff -

This new program is going to rolled out to the department supervisors. It is these Supervisors who are primarily responsible for the Root Cause and Long Term Corrective Actions.

True Cliff -

This new program is going to rolled out to the department supervisors. It is these Supervisors who are primarily responsible for the Root Cause and Long Term Corrective Actions.
Sounds good, but now I'm confused by your statement about focusing on the shop floor personnel. How does that fit in?

My primary focus is to make the impression on our shop personnel.

What does this have to do with not tying a monetary value to your nonconformances? Most people, except for the very lowest on the evolutionary ladder, can understand the simple concept of "if my company makes money, there is a better chance that I too will make money, or at least have a job to come to every day."

If you make your people feel like a part of the team, and not just some necessary evil because the "management" doesn't want, or doesn't know how, to do the dirty work, they will probably begin to take responsibility and accountability for their work. I am big on ownership, responsibility and accountability. Teamwork, it is everything. You all need to be on the same page. If nonconforming material is important to the management, you need to make sure that employees not only know it, but that it is important to them also. Quit treating them as below the "need to know" level and make them a part of it. :2cents: you may be surprised when people start coming up with solutions.;)

True Cliff -

This new program is going to rolled out to the department supervisors. It is these Supervisors who are primarily responsible for the Root Cause and Long Term Corrective Actions.

What type of Mfg. does your company do?

We are a large job shop/machine shop with about 65 employees.
I publish scrap dollars by clock number weekly with their appropriate graph.
I publish scrap PPM earned dollars vs scrap dollars monthly by clock number. Half of our incentives are personal the other half team based. This gives our shop personnel a little incentive to apply pressure to the non-performers, and they do. Same with throughput/efficiency. Production publishes their numbers weekly, then ties half their incentives personally and the other half in work center groups.

Non-Conformance corrections come in the form of CAR's written by and for the managers responsible for the problems. These get flowed down to the dept. supervisor to investigate and detail. We are in the process of providing root-cause training to a large group of managers, supervisors and floor leaders who will be involved in this. Since they are more intimate with the problems, naturally they will usually come up with the most favorable solutions. Quality follows up on all Corrective Actions after an appropriate time period but finallly, we're not the ones writing most of them.

Good Luck on your initiative.
When we started working on the same thing a little over a year ago, we found that the greatest contributing problem was Training. Lack of updated work instructions, old employees always doing it the "same" way they have always done it, new employees being trained by old employees, supervisors spending too much time "troubleshooting" and not enough time training their employees, out of date documentation, lack of documentation, floor leaders not caring if new employees prospered, poor updating of existing procedures (things changed and only a couple key people knew it), bad communication (people made changes on the fly and informed no one.) inhibited communication (jealousy between depts.) As we realized most of our problems we put a long term action plan in place and it has started to prosper.

Good Luck
Briz

When we started working on the same thing a little over a year ago, we found that the greatest contributing problem was Training. Lack of updated work instructions, old employees always doing it the "same" way they have always done it, new employees being trained by old employees, supervisors spending too much time "troubleshooting" and not enough time training their employees, out of date documentation, lack of documentation, floor leaders not caring if new employees prospered, poor updating of existing procedures (things changed and only a couple key people knew it), bad communication (people made changes on the fly and informed no one.) inhibited communication (jealousy between depts.) As we realized most of our problems we put a long term action plan in place and it has started to prosper.

Good Luck
BrizI have a hunch the training program should ALSO include how to actually do a root cause investigation to derive a "WORKABLE" corrective action, which should also have a follow-up to determine if the corrective action did, indeed, eliminate or reduce the occurrence of the particular type of non-conformance.

Using VALUE as the wakeup call for top managers to invest time and money in the "root cause/corrective action" process is a good idea.

Almost EVERY failed CA program I have ever encountered was simply a "once and done" system, with no follow-up to determine if the proposed CA was implemented and whether it actually worked. One of the most important characteristics of a viable CA program is tracking and comparing NCs against CAs to determine systemic flaws and eliminate them. This means the most important part of the QM's job is to implement the tracking and comparing. Just incidentally, he should be the knowledge base for how to perform the actual "root cause/corrective action" process.

....One thing I might suggest if you're getting a lot of repeat problems, or similar problems on various processes is to focus your corrective action team on topics rather than specific occurrences. Look at the larger picture. For example, if you experience frequent material contamination on various jobs, focus on that, using specific instances for information. Find out what your most common/most expensive problems are and attack them.

I think Dave is on the right track here. Grouping your nonconformances using the Pareto principle and then taking corrective action on the big hitters is the way to go. It helps focus the team (engineering, quality, shop floor, mgmt, etc) together, cross-functionally, on 2-3 specific problems. You get fewer but much more meaningful corrective actions this way.
Avoid demanding root cause and corrective action on every single NCR.

Pitfals I've run into in the past...
- Assigning $$ is okay but gets you into trouble. The true cost (upset customers from late shipments, etc) is usually unseen and doesn't get accounted for. Also, the operator struggling with the .01 cent screw 200 times a day gets ignored and receives the message that their job isn't important.
- Avoid blaming management committment. Usually unproductive and doesn't help. Quality can influence management with facts and data. Help by keeping the team focused on the top frequency occuring nonconformances.

Good luck.

As we realized most of our problems we put a long term action plan in place and it has started to prosper.Briz

Wow, where do you sit? You must work here, you have exactly described our situation.

So, can you please tell us what you did to make things better.

Could you please share your plan? I'd like to benchmark against my plan.

My plan is really simple.

We need to make our first level supervision responsible for the performance of their people.

To do that we need to free them up from their current fire fighting role.

We also need to provide them with supervisory skills (which would include train the trainer).

And the top team has to agree this is worthwhile in order for any of it to happen. That is where we are stuck right now.

And the top team has to agree this is worthwhile in order for any of it to happen. That is where we are stuck right now. That's where the corrective action very often gets bogged down.

I've found that line workers are usually serious about doing their work well, and keen observers of double standards. The double standard must be identified and addressed, not as an attitude but as an opportunity to understand the profitability of doing things well.

I've also found earnest supervisors who reach for the easy "solution":

Supervisor to operator: "Stop doing that." :whip:
Operator to supervisor: "Okay" :truce:

...and the supervisor goes away, feeling satisfied the problem is solved. But then the problem reoccurs, or something near it. But the problem was never really understood very well. I have found very few people who

1) can do a thoughtful 5-Why, and
2) fewer yet who review that 5-Why with the needed expertise and authority to send it back if it doesn't go into enough depth.

Succeeding in #2 requires upper management devotion to solving problems instead of just making stuff. For them, the language of money is critical and it needs to be stated in terms that directly reflect their goals. If the goal is to improve profits by 10% and quality problems reduced that figure to 8%, say so: and be ready to explain how it happened, using real numbers and events with people's names taken out.

Even this will not always being success. Not all people think pragmatically, and our schools frankly don't do a great job of developing this trait. :2cents:

Wow, where do you sit? You must work here, you have exactly described our situation.

So, can you please tell us what you did to make things better.

Could you please share your plan? I'd like to benchmark against my plan.

My plan is really simple.

We need to make our first level supervision responsible for the performance of their people.

To do that we need to free them up from their current fire fighting role.

We also need to provide them with supervisory skills (which would include train the trainer).

And the top team has to agree this is worthwhile in order for any of it to happen. That is where we are stuck right now.

I'll address your question when I get a little more time on Mon. I want the answer to give your question its due.

Briz

True Cliff -

This new program is going to rolled out to the department supervisors. It is these Supervisors who are primarily responsible for the Root Cause and Long Term Corrective Actions.

From the brief amount of statements I would stick with the advice from Jennifer and Wes:yes:...your problem seems to stem from poor root cause analysis, and the acceptance of same. Your quoted root causes would never be accepted by me during my review as the "gatekeeper" of all NCR / CAR's. Do you have such a process?

Other Covers have mentioned the 5-why methodology, which is a structured method for determining the most likely root cause. I say "most likely", as I believe that it will be the extremely rare case that yields a 100% true root cause. As I have taught, sometimes you go with the most likely root cause that you can fix.:tg:

Hello All,

I am looking for suggestions in putting some teeth into our Non-Conformance Program. We currently generate a Non-Conformance form when we have produced material that is Non-Conforming. The Non-Conformance Report (NCR) defines the description of the non-conformance, is submitted for a Short Term Disposition and subsequent rework, and then the applicable department supervisor is to follow through on Root Cause with the individual and finally determine Long Term Corrective Action - which historically has been worthless. First and foremost, I am planning a higher level of involvement in digging root cause, and implementing some type of corrective action. I also need to be more involved in the process in the first person.

We have flat lined over the past four years, with no improvement in decreasing the number of NCRs - which is one of my primary goals for 2008.

I would like to add a "Rating" to all NCRs for 2008, to identify the critical level of the NCR. A rating of 1 would be least critical to say 4, which would be most critical. Does anyone have any examples, ideas, suggestions, or horror stories about a similar type rating?

Are there any suggestions anyone can make to help improve our system?

Thanks in advance!
I work in the biotech industry which typically has a risk rating associated with nonconformances. Risk ratings help management determine the amount of resources that need to be dedicated to an investigation. For example, if an NC had a risk rating of 1 (as in your example above), then the number of resources needed should be minimal compared to a risk rating of 4. Because there is a difference in the number of resources and time for each risk rating, it's a good idea to determine the average cost of each . Also, to make sure each person interprets the risk ratings consistently, you need to provide very good definitions and examples. Keep in mind that if an FDA inspector saw a risk rating of 1 but a lot of time and resources went into the investigation then it would call into question whether or not the investigation was misclassified....this would be the case with any inspector/auditor.