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domingue
This is my first time posting, but I’ve been hanging around for a good while now. Before I get to the problem, I first should thank you all for being such an incredible resource for an inexperienced guy like me. I’ve found this place to be my most used reference by a long shot in trying to wrap my head around this QA stuff.
Here’s my situation:
I graduated in June ‘06 with a degree in Mech/Aero Engineering and started working for a small aerospace manufacturing company that September as a designer/engineer. After about 5 months of floating and not being sure what I was supposed to be doing, I was pushed temporarily into the QA position. At the time, I was pretty upset about it because I had kind of adopted my boss's view that QA was like the police and the only reason they exist is because people don't do their jobs right in the first place. I've since changed my view and I really like the QA Management - actually, the lack of involvement has forced me to learn a lot much faster, so it's not all bad. Also, as I get more into it and explain what it's REALLY about and continue to show results, the owner has become much more willing to help me out and give me what I need. By some act of God, I managed to pull the company through an AS9100 audit last month (no prior registration) with zero formal training and about 6 months of prep. Needless to say, it looks like I’m in this position to stay at this point – I’m definitely ok with that.
Because the company had no focus on quality in the past, I'm having a difficult time instilling some of the quality values in the production workers, and I was looking for some advice. Right now, I'm working on better accountability for task completion and NC material. A lot of practices that are standard for aerospace (Material Rejection Reports and documented dispositions, split lots, strictly controlled quantities, etc) simply were never practiced the way they should have been. When I bring this up to the Production Manager, he sees it as “slowing him down” and isn’t really willing to cooperate. He’s a great guy and generally very willing to help out, but he comes from a background where quantity controls and accountability weren’t so important. His feeling is that as long as he gets the number of parts he needs, and all of them are good, then it doesn’t really matter if you rejected 5 at task 1 and 7 at task 2, as long as 5 and 7 are acceptable numbers.
Is there some kind of compromise we can strike that will get me the accountability I need without slowing him down too much? How do other people handle this? Am I demanding more than is necessary?
Wow, this ended up being a novel – sorry for the long first post. Thanks in advance for any help you can give!
-Nate
Here’s my situation:
I graduated in June ‘06 with a degree in Mech/Aero Engineering and started working for a small aerospace manufacturing company that September as a designer/engineer. After about 5 months of floating and not being sure what I was supposed to be doing, I was pushed temporarily into the QA position. At the time, I was pretty upset about it because I had kind of adopted my boss's view that QA was like the police and the only reason they exist is because people don't do their jobs right in the first place. I've since changed my view and I really like the QA Management - actually, the lack of involvement has forced me to learn a lot much faster, so it's not all bad. Also, as I get more into it and explain what it's REALLY about and continue to show results, the owner has become much more willing to help me out and give me what I need. By some act of God, I managed to pull the company through an AS9100 audit last month (no prior registration) with zero formal training and about 6 months of prep. Needless to say, it looks like I’m in this position to stay at this point – I’m definitely ok with that.
Because the company had no focus on quality in the past, I'm having a difficult time instilling some of the quality values in the production workers, and I was looking for some advice. Right now, I'm working on better accountability for task completion and NC material. A lot of practices that are standard for aerospace (Material Rejection Reports and documented dispositions, split lots, strictly controlled quantities, etc) simply were never practiced the way they should have been. When I bring this up to the Production Manager, he sees it as “slowing him down” and isn’t really willing to cooperate. He’s a great guy and generally very willing to help out, but he comes from a background where quantity controls and accountability weren’t so important. His feeling is that as long as he gets the number of parts he needs, and all of them are good, then it doesn’t really matter if you rejected 5 at task 1 and 7 at task 2, as long as 5 and 7 are acceptable numbers.
Is there some kind of compromise we can strike that will get me the accountability I need without slowing him down too much? How do other people handle this? Am I demanding more than is necessary?
Wow, this ended up being a novel – sorry for the long first post. Thanks in advance for any help you can give!
-Nate