Improve the Cycle Time of Corrective Actions ? What have I got myself into

Improve the Cycle Time of Corrective Actions – What have I got myself into

I’ve been assigned a project to improve the cycle time of our CARs and improve the quality of the CARs themselves (written poorly and clearly rushed through and not taken seriously). The short story is we have 20 some plants, weak upper management support and an archaic system. We attempted audits of random CARs but this made the people feel attacked. Is this a project were I’m doomed to fail? I don’t even know where to begin, but can’t help but think that even if I improve the process/quality of the CARs no one takes them seriously so it will be a big waste of time. Any insight from others who have ‘been there done that’?? Help.

Re: Corrective Action – what have I got myself into

First of all, Welcome to the Cove! Thought provoking first post!

There is more than one issue here, it appears. First is the CARs being poorly written and pushed through. The second is that no one is taking them seriously. They may be connected. As the CAR quality improves, so may be the response to them.

My recommendation is to eat the elephant one bite at a time. I would focus on making the system work better. Making sure the CARs are well thought out, clearly stated, and real root causes identified. Once folks see that CARs can be more than just a paper exercise, they will tend to respect them more.

If you want to audit the CARs, make sure you don't say things like: "You did this wrong." Folks will see that as an attack. Instead, what I like to do is to point out alternatives to make the CAR more clear. I stress clarity and robustness in documenting and implementing CARs.

Not everyone will always get on board, though. Don't take it personally when they don't.

Hope that helps some.

Re: Corrective Action – what have I got myself into

shane23 said:

I’ve been assigned a project to improve the cycle time of our CARs and improve the quality of the CARs themselves (written poorly and clearly rushed trhough and not taken seriously). The short story is we have 20 some plants, weak uppermanagment support and an archaic system. We attempted audits of random CARs but this made the people feel attached. Is this a project were I’m doomed to fail? I don’t even know where to begin, but can’t help but think that even if I improve the process/quality of the CARs no one takes them seriously so it will be a big waste of time. Any insight from others who have ‘been there done that’?? Help.

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Welcome to the Cove.

Before you can accomplish changes like this on a large scale, there must be adequate support from above. Without it there's probably no incentive for anyone to change. You're not doomed to fail--the system has already failed, and you're probably mostly powerless to change it.

Rather than trying to change the system on your own, you should approach the problem from the perspective of getting management to understand their responsibility in making things better. You do this by showing that failure to conscientiously fix recurring problems is expensive. If you're not speaking to management in the only language they understand ($$$) you might as well be talking to yourself.

Re: Corrective Action – what have I got myself into

Show me the money.

Show me the money.

It is a universal language, and will serve as the 2 x 4 upside the head of upper management, as well as the folks on the floor. Try to show how the CARs cost money, and how much they cost. The amount does not have to be down to the penny, but each amount must be believable.

Re: Corrective Action – what have I got myself into

Interesting..........so I should research a reoccuring problem and determine the $$ spent on this and present it to managment......I definitly think this is doable. Once I have thier attention I then can move forward with addressing the issues in the entire system/process. Im new to this so bear with me......how do I track down the $$ associated with this reoccuring problme? Do I look at warranty data related to manufacturing issues, then see how many CA were issued, etc...

Re: Corrective Action – what have I got myself into

shane23 said:

Interesting..........so I should research a reoccuring problem and determine the $$ spent on this and present it to managment......I definitly think this is doable. Once I have thier attention I then can move forward with addressing the issues in the entire system/process. Im new to this so bear with me......how do I track down the $$ associated with this reoccuring problme? Do I look at warranty data related to manufacturing issues, then see how many CA were issued, etc...

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not a bad approach.

I would start here: go up to the top of this page and look at the "post attachment List" and "More free files" for stuff about Cost of Quality. I sure you'll find some stuff about collecting costs associated with failures - materials, rework labor, reinspection labor, etc.
Maybe even get the company to buy you a couple books on the subject.

At the same time I would start to focus on repeat issues. Because repeat issues are where you can say "if we fixed it the first time these others wouldn't have happened and cost us $X."

Re: Corrective Action – what have I got myself into

We have a COPQ report.....but where do I start? I can segment out scrap and rework, but do I need to keep drilling down to a manufacturing area? If so how? Typically do these reports show the work cells and $$ tied back to them, if so mine does not go into that much detail.

Here is what I have:
1. CAR report (belive it or not the repeat CAR indicator is not available on my summarized reports, so Im tracking that down)

2. COPQ - for all sites, focused on scrap,warranty, rework, concessions, this is not detailed at all.

3. DPU - for all sites

4. Claims report - some of the best data in terms of descriptions of the problems.

Re: Corrective Action – what have I got myself into

shane23 said:

.... Any insight from others who have ‘been there done that’?? Help.

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Hi Shane, I've been there before and done that...I think the cost focus is a good one to get mgmt attention, but I know it can be difficult and time consuming to get true cost impact data.

Here are some other ideas that may help give you other options to think about:
- use data to combine and reduce the quantity of CARs: for example - don't write a CAR for every NC received from a supplier, measure and track NC's, Pareto them by part or supplier and then write one CAR against the worst performer. Another example for internal audit NC's, you could write one CAR to cover multiple audit NC's of the same type, doc control issues for example.

- assign people from QA as the ones responsible for each CAR: they don't have to do the work, but they are responsible for following up and filling out the paperwork. You'll get better quality responses that way and upper mgmt from other depts will like the fact they are not responsible for the paperwork.

- CAR cycle time: why even track this as a metric? Different problems need different amounts of time to analyze and solve. Who cares if it takes 30 days, 6 months, a year? Another way to look at is that you could reduce your average CAR cycle time metric, but still ship poor quality. The important thing to focus on is having a flexible CAR system that allows you to adjust the due date of a cAR, yet helps you not to lose track or follow-up on key issues.

Hope this helps. Good luck.