© 2004 Cayman Business Systems
Rev: Pre-G3 - Rendered  Thursday, February 12, 2004
Slide 170
Elsmar.com  --- The Cove!
8-Disciplines Problem Solving
Elsmar.com
We have Quality Problems!
• In American manufacturing, this statement leads to an unsatisfactory resolution to the problem. “We have Quality Problems” shifts the concerns from the undetermined true source (operation & process) to an area where the root cause never occurred (Quality Control) and the true cause is addressed and corrected through high cost inspection methods.
It has been my experience that...
When difficulties in product arise, Quality Control usually finds it, analyses it, and reports the results to management.  This process is fine, it is Quality’s Job to do this.  What ends up happening in some situations is Quality ends up owning the Problem.  The use of Statistics helps to keep the Problem alive.
Although SPC is a good tool for identifying problems it does very little to prevent them from happening.  We see week after week of process and product monitoring with small improvements being made but not major jumps.  What could be missing?
What we see happening is a Fire.  Quality confirms the fire, monitors its progress and everyone tries to put out the fires. Juran termed this sporadic problem solving.  we use containment practices, but what truly ends up happening, is we all stand around and watch it burn.