Beyond PDCA by Praveen Gupta

P

PraveenGupta

#71
Tim:

Excellent points.

Praveen, I think I have a fundamentally different interpretation of "check" than you do - and perhaps a fundamentally different view of PDCA as a whole.
You certainly have the right understanding of PDCA's intent, however, that is not the typical implementation of PDCA, based on quality problems the US manufacturing faced, and end up outsourcing. It was not due to labor price, it was due to the ability of our processes to produce acceptable parts, not the best quality parts cost effectively. By the way, this scenario we still see it. Many BIG 3 suppliers still do a lot of inspection, sorting, and reinspection, and resorting....Industry's position speaks for itself. There are other reasons for their problems too.

Perhaps PPPP is more of an an overall process management philisophy, while PDCA is the way to acheive the specific "perfect" stage. (And I pronounce that "per-FECT" as in "bring nearer to perfection", rather than "PER-fect" as in "flawless; always meeting specs")
You are absolutely write. PDCA is for product management through process control, while the 4P is for process management through supply control, and clearly defining targets.

Love to hear your thoughts about target. I have a question. At your work, do you find people define targets on prints and specifications. How much the process output is inspection dependent, and the first pass yields are?

Thanks,

praveen
 
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Jim Wynne

Staff member
Admin
#72
Jim: I was not on this Forum. You invited me to here to discuss the 4P model, and now you blame me of selling my product. Absolutely sounds unexpected.
I don't "blame" you for anything. You are in business, and you have a product to sell. I respect that. It's what makes the world go 'round. :D
Nonetheless, with the marketing of the product comes the responsibility to support the claims made for one's product. To your credit, you've shared your ideas with quality professionals at large, and I have no reason to doubt your sincerity in wanting to help people improve their systems. But you have to expect that when you claim to have toppled an icon, there will be calls for you to support your contentions.

I appreciate your coming here, and I hope you'll stick around and participate. Not only is your experience valuable, but I think you'll find the experience edifying in a unique way.
 
C

Craig H.

#75
Praveen,

I think I have a fundamentally different interpretation of "check" than you do - and perhaps a fundamentally different view of PDCA as a whole.

The statement above implies that you equate "check" with "inspect" (and please correct me if I am wrong). For example, you might plan a new production line, do the construction, check the parts, and act by shipping good parts and scrapping bad parts.

I view "check" as "analyze the data and compare the results to the desired outcomes". (I can see why many people prefer the word "study" for this sort of activity!) So in the hypothetical example above, the plan is for a production line, so the production line is what is being checked, not the individual parts. If the production line as a whole is not adequate, I wouldn't just check the parts to eliminate individuals that don't meet specs.

I would act by initiating a new project (with potentially many subprojects) to improve the process. Perhaps start with a PDCA cycle (or PPPP) to identify the types of problems. Then a PDCA cycle to find out when & where they occur. Then a PDCA cycle (or perhaps many) to reduce/eliminate the problem.


Perhaps PPPP is more of an an overall process management philisophy, while PDCA is the way to acheive the specific "perfect" stage. (And I pronounce that "per-FECT" as in "bring nearer to perfection", rather than "PER-fect" as in "flawless; always meeting specs")


Tim F
Yes, Tim. If I might add, for a while after starting down the Q road I had a misconception about Demings' point concerning eliminating the reliance upon inspection. I thought that meant that our ultimate goal was to eliminate inspection and voilà, no more problems. Of course that was way off.

What that grand wizard was talking about was reliance on inspection. This goes to the heart of what we are talking about I think. The "check" is a check of the PROCESS, which may or may not involve an inspection of parts produced. To me what this means is that we need to monitor our processes to make sure they are doing what we think they are doing. At the same time we should avoid what Dr. Deming called tampering, however.

As far as "good enough" goes, Mr. Taguchi developed a curve, and a philosophy, that describes this dilemma very well. If we exceed the quality needed for a particular exercise, or if we fall short, there are economic and/or societal costs involved. If we install a gold-plated, perfect, electrical contact on a device that will have an expected life of a few hours, we may be beyond the apex of the curve. If we install a cheaply made contact on a part that is intended to last 200,000 miles, there are costs involved there as well (warranty, customer satisfaction, society losing productivity due to time on the side of the road, etc.). The trick is to find the right balance that fulfills the intended purpose, but no more.

This may be a little off topic, when I hear this discussed I cannot help but think of a scene in the movie "The Blues Brothers". Their car suffered a great amount of abuse, but fulfilled its intended purpose. When that mission was fulfilled, the car fell to pieces, literally. The result of perfect automotive design.

Please excuse the ramble.
 

Steve Prevette

Deming Disciple
Staff member
Super Moderator
#76
Praveen:

Early on is this thread I made the statement that I believe you (and ISO 9000) are misinterpreting the use of "check". You and ISO seem to reflect that "check" is check against the specifications, in effect, Management by Objective. In fact, this is why Dr. Deming substituted "study" for "check". We should study the results on the control chart, looking at variation and its placement against the specifications. I also noted that one of your flowcharts seems to indicate that as long as the specifications are met, ship the product and do not move into improvement. Do you have any response on these comments?

Thanks,
 

Wes Bucey

Quite Involved in Discussions
#77
Yes, Tim. If I might add, for a while after starting down the Q road I had a misconception about Demings' point concerning eliminating the reliance upon inspection. I thought that meant that our ultimate goal was to eliminate inspection and voilà, no more problems. Of course that was way off.

What that grand wizard was talking about was reliance on inspection. This goes to the heart of what we are talking about I think. The "check" is a check of the PROCESS, which may or may not involve an inspection of parts produced. To me what this means is that we need to monitor our processes to make sure they are doing what we think they are doing. At the same time we should avoid what Dr. Deming called tampering, however.

As far as "good enough" goes, Mr. Taguchi developed a curve, and a philosophy, that describes this dilemma very well. If we exceed the quality needed for a particular exercise, or if we fall short, there are economic and/or societal costs involved. If we install a gold-plated, perfect, electrical contact on a device that will have an expected life of a few hours, we may be beyond the apex of the curve. If we install a cheaply made contact on a part that is intended to last 200,000 miles, there are costs involved there as well (warranty, customer satisfaction, society losing productivity due to time on the side of the road, etc.). The trick is to find the right balance that fulfills the intended purpose, but no more.

This may be a little off topic, when I hear this discussed I cannot help but think of a scene in the movie "The Blues Brothers". Their car suffered a great amount of abuse, but fulfilled its intended purpose. When that mission was fulfilled, the car fell to pieces, literally. The result of perfect automotive design.

Please excuse the ramble.
I'm glad both Tim and Craig have voiced a point I knew but didn't make - "Check" means check the process and an inspection of product both "in-process" and at completion provides "symptoms" if the process is ailing. A lack of symptoms means the process is currently healthy.

Most quality folks would agree it is better to prevent nonconformance than to inspect to remove them after production. It would be a rare individual in a position of authority over quality who would think of inspection as a "sorting" activity to remove bad product (except as a temporary stopgap while analyzing root cause and formulating process fixes.) Most of them look at detection of a nonconformance as a signal to fix a process rather than to correct the flaw in an individual product by reworking or scrapping it to prevent delivery to a customer.
 
Q

qualitytrec

#78
My understanding of PDCA and Gupta's explaination of 4p is the same. I see no difference between them. I do see people misapplying the principles or trying to implement the principles with out a proper understanding of them. This is usually due to cheap management (do not want to pay for training so they buy a book, usually the small inexpensive one), or relying on faulty resources (bad training or a budy who saw an article). The problem that I see in this discussion and in the article is the same problem that the article claims to be addressing. That is, we say the cycle isn't working because it is not understood or applied well (the author claims that the focus is wrong in the PDCA, I disagree). I do not understand how changing the names of the steps improves the situation. Is not the real issue training and implementation. Because people do not like dealing with change we could name it Concept, Actualize, Check, Act or Caca if it helps it stick fine but I have not come with anything revolutionary or changed the intent of the original model. Calling it 4P instead may help certain groups already familiar with PDCA relate to it in a slightly broader way but I do not see it changing the intent of the originator. When PDCA was changed to PDSA was trying to bring clairity to the laity not trying to creat new doctrine. Gupta while your version may help bring clarity to some I do not see how it has brought any change to the original authors intent.
By the way thank you for discussing this with us, I do appreciate your time and input as we try to discover what you are trying to offer in this article.
 

Wes Bucey

Quite Involved in Discussions
#80
CACA!:lmao: :lmao: :lmao:
Wonderful acronym! If any ESL folk don't get the joke, start a thread over in the Coffee Break Forum - it could end up being a hilarious thread as folks offer additional examples!
Please don't derail this thread by offering more here!
 
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