Broken Gages - Lack of Accountability

[Matt Swartwood]

Hello, all. This is not necessarily a quality systems question, but more so an outreach for advice from those who may have at one time been in my shoes. I am battling an onslaught of broken and lost gages; an issue that has been worse in the last year than all of the previous years combined. Any advice would greatly be appreciated. Below is a snapshot of my situation:

1. Our company has grown no less than 30% per year since its conception; and in fact, last year was more on the lines of 50% growth. Having that said, the problem (opportunity) grows exponentially.

2. We are a QS-9000 company (working on TS), so all gages are maintained in a calibration system. We also have a weekly audit (random department) to ensure all gages are in their designated area and are functional.

3. 100% of all new hires go through orientation, part of which is proper gage usage, application, and storage.

4. Currently, we have gages that are assigned to inspection areas, which are used by all personnel within that department. Manufacturing is responsible for ensuring the quality of their product.

5. If a gage is lost or broken, no one knows what happened and there is no accountability, which I hope to change.

The following are suggestions that I have received so far and where I hit a wall when it comes to implementing any of them:

Suggestion 1: Hire roaming inspectors responsible for in-process checks and issue gages to them. Issue: Indirect labor is an indicator for profit/loss measurement. In addition, we are a job shop on a very large scale (10000 different part numbers); we would have to have several inspectors per department for setups and in process.

Suggestion 2: Assign a gage box with required tools to each machine to help track what gages were used by whom. Issue: Because of the nature of our business, and operator may run three to four (or more) machines daily and it would still be difficult to track who actually damaged/lost them.

Suggestion 3: Assign a gage to each person and hold them accountable. Issue: We don't currently have enough gages to go around and all gage purchases come out of my budget (which isn't great). In addition, the Plant Manager does not believe in holding the operators financially accountable.

Suggestion 4: Have each team leader (or supervisor) assign gages at the beginning of every day and collect them at the end of the day. Issue: Our ME doesn't like this due to the lost production time and efficiency.

So, that pretty much sums it up. Again any advice would greatly be appreciated!

 

[Jerry Eldred]

A quick gut response is that there is not accountability (I know you said that). If I were attempting to resolve such a situation and received that much conflicting input, I would call a meeting of the disagreeing parties (managers, depts, etc) and present what you posted below to all of them. I would then tell them in the most basic form what the requirement is that must be met (whether QS, TS, cost, or combination thereof), present to them what options you have been offered (using good positive language and not naming names), and what opposition has been there. I would then ask them together to provide a solution. This seems like a cross-functional/teaming challenge.

The other thing I would do if needed before the meeting is to get someone from upper management to support the issue (a sponsor).

One method I have seen used in larger factories is a gage checkout. Operators checkout gages and check them back in. Whether daily weekly or whatever wasn't an issue. If there are multiple department numbers associated with the gages, although I agree operators shouldn't have to personally pay for reasonable accidental damage, I would lean toward charging gages back to the using departments.

The hole I see (from my experience) is an owning department. logically, the using department it seems should be the owning department. It looks like a disconnect in ownership. One department owns them and is accountable for their cost while another uses them. From a simple business perspective this doesn't seem to make sense. It is all the same bottom line. What costs your department comes out of their bottom line (and yours). The disconnect between financial ownership and use removes the incentive for operators to take better care of these. I would contend that the cost of the gages applied to any given department is purely an accounting exercise. Applying that cost to the using department doesn't add any real cost, just transfers it more accurately, and in the process provides feedback that provides a cost saving incentive that over time would actually improve bottom line. Fixing the disconnect so that the using department sees what they spend in gage repair or replacement will reduce cost.

Once the cost/ownership accountability disconnect is fixed, I would still hold the meeting described above and let them decide what will work for all of them.

Just a few thoughts. Hope this is of some help.

 

[howste]

Good thoughts, Jerry. Matt, first, a couple of questions: What kind of gages are we talking about? What kind of damage seems to be the most common?

Depending on what kind of gages you're talking about, you might find some limited success in using "leashes" on the gages. This helps to prevent them from being dropped on the floor. Some gages might be semi-permanently attached to centrally located stations, while others are attached to frequent users with velcro straps.

As far as lost gages, have you checked the local pawn shops?

 

[Wes Bucey]

Good thoughts, Jerry. Matt, first, a couple of questions: What kind of gages are we talking about? What kind of damage seems to be the most common?

Depending on what kind of gages you're talking about, you might find some limited success in using "leashes" on the gages. This helps to prevent them from being dropped on the floor. Some gages might be semi-permanently attached to centrally located stations, while others are attached to frequent users with velcro straps.

As far as lost gages, have you checked the local pawn shops?

Even though the pawn shop line is meant as a joke, I am saddened to report personal knowledge of folks stealing gages and instruments (micrometers, verniers, etc.) and turning them to profit by selling or using them in home or moonlighting jobs.

This is a financial situation. The hard cost of replacing missing or broken gages is compounded by lost time in productivity if a part or process can't be inspected until a new gage is procured.

I agree top management has to be involved in this.
A "mistake proof" process has to be implemented to apply accountability (paper trail by serial number) each time possession of a gage or instrument is transferred from one person to another.

Where gages are in use by a small pool of employees (five guys in a 400 square foot lab) - make them jointly confirm an inventory at the beginning and end of every shift.

Breakage needs tracking. This means a questionnaire and or interview when someone breaks a gage (need to have the accountability scenario in place first.) With an adequate questionnaire, common or special causes of breakage can be tracked with a view toward redesign of gage or work instruction to reduce the breakage.

Lost gages. Gages disappear for a number of reasons. Theft for gain or sabotage of the organization or another worker happens in the most unlikely organizations, so yours and mine aren't immune. Loss of a gage through carelessness may be ameliorated by attaching large bright tags or streamers to find them if they get dropped in a box of piece parts or "accidentally" thrown into a trash bin, or carried off in someone's pocket.

In my opinion, it is counterproductive to charge individual employees for gages. It may be OK to allocate costs of gages to various departments, but it is important to maintain ownership plus physical and calibration control under the Quality department. It is important to have buy-in (with management coercion, if necessary) of every department which may use or have gages in their possession. Control only happens with agreement and cooperation from all parties and levels involved from top down to individual worker. It is within reason to discipline employees who do not follow gage maintenance and protection procedures, but it is not reasonable to punish an employee who follows all the procedures and still breaks a gage.

One lost gage from an employee may be acceptable once the accountability procedures are in place. A major "root cause" needs to be launched with a second loss by the same employee.

This isn't going to be easy, but the situation can easily spiral out of control if you and management do not take action starting TODAY.

Please write back, and let us know whether any of our comments here in the Cove help you. Especially write back as to whether your bosses buy into the suggestions and whether they work in your organization.

 

[Matt Swartwood]

Thank you very much for your responses. I have actually thought of using the corrective/preventive action process to help identify a common root cause (where it exists) and to implement actions to prevent, or at least reduce the amount of damage we are seeing.

IMO, we are not having many (if any) gages walking to the pawn shops; as most lost gages turn up a month or two later. Typically, calipers and height gages are the two types of gages the see the most abuse.

We currently post charts throughout the facility on a monthly basis, which report cost of quality, departmental, internal, external PPM, on-time delivery, lost time injuries, sales per employee, etc, which would be a good start in identifying loss and damage departmentally. We also plan to start a "gain sharing" program, where a portion of the profit every month will be shared with the employee. I will have the opportunity help put this program together and I will be asking the Plant Manager if gages could be part of the measurement indicators. This will not only act as an incentive, but also will add a little peer pressure from other employees when seeing someone mistreating a gage.

Thank you again for all of your responses. These suggestions will be discussed in future management review meetings. I will check in periodically and will return with updates as to how the situation is improving. If there are any more ideas, they are more than welcome.

 

[SteelWoman]

We use a system where gauges are assigned to machines and an operator is required to perform a "verification" of that instrument against a known standard at the beginning of his/her shift - EVERY SHIFT - and the shift's Team Leader is then required to initial that check. We use a monthly sheet for them to record this verification, and the sheets are checked each month and HEADS ROLL if there's a problem. We have a procedure that notes what exactly must be done if an instrument will not verify, which of course also covers if the instrument is NOT THERE for whatever reason. We've used this system with MUCH success - it only took a little work at the beginning to get management serious about consequences if the sheets were not filled out routinely and completely, we reinforce that now by putting out reports at the end of the month mentioning any misses and lauding the ones that do it perfectly.

The other part of this that is nice, though honestly we've never had to exercise it (my guess is if you exercise it ONCE in a problem environment it will be the ONLY time you'd ever have to again) is that if an operator fails to perform the verification and continues merrily along on his/her shift and it is recognized (by a wandering shift manager or whomever) that the instrument was not verified as required, everything STOPS and the team must verify the instrument and then RE-measure every single thing they ran from the beginning of the shift to the moment it was caught. If you're in an environment where compensation is based on number of parts or tons run in a given shift, this little exercise will SERIOUSLY impact the operator's bottom line, and I'll betcha' never see it happen again!

 

[Wes Bucey]

We use a system where gauges are assigned to machines and an operator is required to perform a "verification" of that instrument against a known standard at the beginning of his/her shift - EVERY SHIFT - and the shift's Team Leader is then required to initial that check. We use a monthly sheet for them to record this verification, and the sheets are checked each month and HEADS ROLL if there's a problem. We have a procedure that notes what exactly must be done if an instrument will not verify, which of course also covers if the instrument is NOT THERE for whatever reason. We've used this system with MUCH success - it only took a little work at the beginning to get management serious about consequences if the sheets were not filled out routinely and completely, we reinforce that now by putting out reports at the end of the month mentioning any misses and lauding the ones that do it perfectly.

The other part of this that is nice, though honestly we've never had to exercise it (my guess is if you exercise it ONCE in a problem environment it will be the ONLY time you'd ever have to again) is that if an operator fails to perform the verification and continues merrily along on his/her shift and it is recognized (by a wandering shift manager or whomever) that the instrument was not verified as required, everything STOPS and the team must verify the instrument and then RE-measure every single thing they ran from the beginning of the shift to the moment it was caught. If you're in an environment where compensation is based on number of parts or tons run in a given shift, this little exercise will SERIOUSLY impact the operator's bottom line, and I'll betcha' never see it happen again!

Just an observation.

It may be an effective policy, but somehow the "carrot and stick" approach where the reward is practically nothing compared to the penalty of being caught, is sort of like a gold star next to your name for perfect attendance and having your ear cut off for one tardy.

Is there a way to mistake proof the process to avoid the waste of time and money for the organization as well as the individual and his team? It seems to me your method is predicated on FEAR of error - not very Deming-like.

 

[Hershal]

I have inherited similar problems. The best solution I came up with.....since the budget for obtaining and maintaining the gage is yours.....

Senior Management (VP/CEO) needs to decree and support that while you buy and obtain support for the items, and the items are assigned to departments.....

An inventory will be done by your department on some periodic basis (e.g quarterly), and any gage not found then or within a reasonable time (say 2 working days) will be charged back to that resident department, and the replacement will also be charged to them......a double charge.

Trust me, your missing issues will stop after the first couple of times the bottom line is hit.

Of course, the solution will not be popular, but it works.

Hershal

 

[Mike S.]

Just an observation.

It may be an effective policy, but somehow the "carrot and stick" approach where the reward is practically nothing compared to the penalty of being caught, is sort of like a gold star next to your name for perfect attendance and having your ear cut off for one tardy.

Is there a way to mistake proof the process to avoid the waste of time and money for the organization as well as the individual and his team? It seems to me your method is predicated on FEAR of error - not very Deming-like.

Perhaps not Deming-like, but not every problem is solved by Deming-like solutions, just like not everything can be repaired by one of those nifty Leatherman multi-tools. JMO of course.

 

[Caster]

Another way

We had a similar problem, 9 areas where gages were always damaged or missing.

This solution may not work for you. Our people did hand measurements on the line and also brought parts to a central lab for CMM measurement.

We collected all 9 sets (or what we could find) locked 8 away and put one complete set in our CMM lab.

Since operators brought their parts to the CMM room anyway, while they were there they did the checks.

Unintended benefit - our CMM people taught operators proper care, use, respect and pride for their tools. Many measurement errors were corrected because it was quite, clean and an expert was at hand to answer questions.

As gages got damaged, a spare one was taken from the lock box, calibrated and put in use. We still have lots of extras.

Again, it may not work for you...but first ask does everyone need every gage at their line? Then ask why 5 times.