8-D for Rare Occurence - How do I respond?

[Jay Sturgeon]

We have a part that we weld two weld nuts onto. It is fully automated, excluding loading the part onto a fixture and moving the conatiner when it is full. The weld unit has been Poke-Yoked to death and will not allow a part to be move to the next station and/or be ejected if it has not been welded.

There two other companies that work on the parts after they leave here and before going to our customer.

The company that ships into the customer found a part missing both weld nuts and showing no evidence ever being welded.

My customer wants an 8-D for this, I'll call it a fluke. All suggestions would be appreciated. By the way this is automotive application.

Jay

 

[Howard Atkins]

If I understand your description then the part skipped the welding station and got into the finished box.
You said that 2 companies then dealt with the part and the final company discovered this which means the first company did not discover this.

The problem is not in the weld unit but in the handling somewhere. Why did company 1 not spot this.
I think that there is an incident for 8D.

Bye the bye how did the customer find out if it was discoverd befor shipping?

 

[Sam]

You are responsible for the 8D, because it was your process. An error on someone else's part does'nt negate the error on your part.

 

[Al Dyer]

For all you or they know, it could have been a well meaning person seeing a nut on the floor and throwing it into a container of finished product. Might the product be contained in a manner that when it leaves the line it is protected from that possibility? .......shrink wrap, sealed containers etc.....

What is your relionship with the "SQE" that issued the 8D?
Would a trip to the plant be in order?

At times, a personal visit to discuss the issue and your concerns can have a beneficial outcome. At the very least, you will have a good lunch and a view into the thinking of the "SQE".

I do agree with Sam and Howard, in the end there are questions but the responsibility falls to you.

Al...

 

[Mike S.]

If I understand Jay's concern, there may not be an identifiable root cause for this happening, but I don't of course understand the process.

Has it ever happened before? How often?

Either the machine will in fact allow an unwelded part to move or else there is another route.

But I agree witht eh concept that there are times when an 8-D or formal CA is not appropriate except perhaps to say "no action taken".

 

[Wes Bucey]

If I understand Jay's concern, there may not be an identifiable root cause for this happening, but I don't of course understand the process.

Has it ever happened before? How often?

Either the machine will in fact allow an unwelded part to move or else there is another route.

But I agree with the concept that there are times when an 8-D or formal CA is not appropriate except perhaps to say "no action taken".

For my two cents (which is not much, compared to the Euro) - Jay's company is on the hook for the 8D [or some CA.] (Sometimes the solution may be so obvious, a full-blown 8D is not necessary.)

The question of who "ratted him out" to the customer is moot. Most automotive contracts from OEMs have been including a clause that everyone in the supply chain is supposed to report to the OEM any nonconformances which resulted in internal Corrective Action. The subsequent links in the supply chain were eager to buck the problem to someone else.

If I were in charge at Jay's company. I'd pull out all stops to find the root cause, even if it is one-time sabotage.

One thing I'd be darn sure of is that I got the suspect part to do an intensive examination to ensure:

• it was indeed MY part (Often we only were a partial supplier of an identical part to an OEM and over the course of years, some nonconforming parts were misidentified as ours. We demonstrated by machine tool "signatures" they were NOT ours.)
• whether there had EVER been a weld (could the nuts have been poorly welded and knocked off in subsequent handling?)
• if there had NEVER been a weld, were there any handling or tooling marks to show it had gone through the "motions" of our welding process or was it a stray blank that may have been tossed into a finished bin by human intervention?

Without the suspect piece part for examination, the 8D process really doesn't begin to solve the situation. I'm thinking particularly of steps three and four in the Eight Discipline process:

3. Implement and Verify Short-Term Corrective Actions​

Define and implement those intermediate actions that will protect the customer from the problem until permanent corrective action is implemented. Verify with data the effectiveness of these actions.​

4. Define and Verify Root Causes

​

Identify all potential causes which could explain why the problem occurred. Test each potential cause against the problem description and data. Identify alternative corrective actions to eliminate root cause.​

Ultimately, as described, the situation doesn't affect the end customer at all, especially if one of the next two links in the supply chain is making an assembly using one or both of the welded nuts. Without the nut, the assembly can't proceed. Perhaps the subsequent links in the supply chain could also adopt the Poka Yoke concept to use the nuts for foolproof locating of the piece part prior to performing the subsequent process.

 

[D.Scott]

Jay, let me guess here. Do you receive the part in your customer's packaging from someone else (plater for example), process the parts then repack to the customer's packaging? If you have the process Poke-Yoked to death and the part shows no weld, it must have by-passed the process altogether. In our business the number one cause of unprocessed parts was - parts were left in the customer container (usually under a flap in a cardboard container or wedged in a bin door). By all means, do the 8-D if they want you to but IMHO I wouldn't waste a lot of time looking at the process itself.

Dave

 

[Howard Atkins]

Jay, let me guess here. Do you receive the part in your customer's packaging from someone else (plater for example), process the parts then repack to the customer's packaging? If you have the process Poke-Yoked to death and the part shows no weld, it must have by-passed the process altogether. In our business the number one cause of unprocessed parts was - parts were left in the customer container (usually under a flap in a cardboard container or wedged in a bin door). By all means, do the 8-D if they want you to but IMHO I wouldn't waste a lot of time looking at the process itself.

Dave

But what is the process, as far as I was taught the process starts at receiving and finishes at billing.
The welding process appears to be robust but by our suppositions their appear to be problems in another part of the process.
We had problems of mixed parts and in fact the cause was as Dave said not completly empty containers.
This is a problem that could affect all parts and not just those under discussion.
It is well worth checking this

Jay come back and add some hard facts to all our guesses.

 

[D.Scott]

Of course you are right Howard, the process includes all that you say and more. I was making a distinction (probably a bad idea in light of the new process approach) only to draw attention to the input/element I suspected. Sorry for any confusion.

Dave

 

[Wes Bucey]

Of course you are right Howard, the process includes all that you say and more. I was making a distinction (probably a bad idea in light of the new process approach) only to draw attention to the input/element I suspected. Sorry for any confusion.

Dave

Don't beat yourself up, Dave. Consider that Jay wrote:

The company that ships into the customer found a part missing both weld nuts and showing no evidence ever being welded.

My customer wants an 8-D for this, I'll call it a fluke. All suggestions would be appreciated. By the way this is automotive application.

You responded with what many experienced Quality Managers would have first suspected - "if our system is as "airtight" as we think, the first place to look for errors is some unforeseen human error we hadn't Poka Yoked."

In fact, several of us responded with hints to explore prior to instigating a formal 8D investigation. We took Jay at his word that it is a "fluke" versus a systemic problem. Experienced QManagers always consider the possibility of shortstopping the cost and expense of an in-depth investigation if the root cause is glaringly apparent.

In fact, what happens (the mechanism behind a "flash of intuition") is that the QManager mentally goes through all the steps of an 8D with the various sets of experiences in his mind acting as the members of the 8D team. The various possibilities are examined and considered or discarded in seconds or, at most, minutes, depending on how familiar the QManager is with the processes in his purview.

I,also, hope Jay reports back to us from time to time on the status of this situation.