Improving the Quality of Work

[Ajit Basrur]

Very apt Steve

 

[kgott]

I think having people sign something will hold everyone responsible for their quality of work. If the company is welling to install an incentive program to benefit employees/company, then it has to be both way, employees need to hold their end of the bargain. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Have you talked to management about this? if you havn't I suggest you do so. If they also blame the workers then you'll know that all the other advice you have received above is right.

Perhaps you might also be helped by studying McGreggors Theory X and Theory Y. However note that McGreggor's said that people people are not either one or the other but that they have the potential to be either, depending on the environment they are provided with.

 

[TPMB4]

I've worked in a place that turned me from one type to the other type just by the way they operated. IIRC one type is a self motivator and the other is one who has to be motivated (simplistically speaking). I always like to get stuck into my work, to feel I've done a day's work earning my pay. Through bad management I lost that and became a straight nine to fiver, doing my time then going home. Not really bothered if I got my work done or not TBH. I kick myself for staying at that company because it seriously affected me.

I say this as a warning really because that company went bust. Your workforce is very important and messing them about with carrot and stick approach can backfire in my humble opinion. Without the support of your workforce management will not get where they want to be and that is especially true with quality I reckon. Improve morale, improve the system/processes but be careful about trying to improve the work done through incentives and fear of punishment (carrot and stick).

BTW does anyone have a positive example of a reward system? Most of the ones I have experienced seem to favour some but not all. The worst one actually meant some hard workers never benefited just down to the fact they were not being used to their full potential (in the wrong job because they were reliable so could never make a bonus count). Others got put into jobs they could beat the counts easily and got their bonus despite being quite lazy.

 

[lfrost]

I am trying to improve the quality of work being done at our company. I recommended an incentive program to the president to motivate employees. I was asked to make a statement/form for employees to sign and put in their record that they will strive and adhere to the company quality standards. Does anyone have such a statement or give me suggestions for employees to sign. Thanks in advance!

I used to work for a medical reference laboratory as a supervisor for their drivers. We had a problem of getting the drivers to come in on time with their specimens. We tried a lot of different things to motivate the drivers. One thing we didn't take into account was that traffic patterns change daily. Even though we were in Los Angeles, we didn't think about the traffic! Once we learned to listen to those who were doing the work, and started listening to their problems of the traffic, we re-built the routes by aligning their pickups with the traffic patterns. Once that was done, the drivers started coming in on time!

Money only affects the outcome for a little while, and at most just brings more stress on the employees because you are rewarding them with something that is not something they can control.

 

[kgott]

BTW does anyone have a positive example of a reward system? Most of the ones I have experienced seem to favour some but not all.

From what I have read, and I may be incorrect here but some of the best ways of rewarding people is through being told they have done good work then they have done good work, recognition in front of others at the time and unexpected pleasant supprises but I know there are problems with that one too.

A bloke once told me the best reward he ever had was being told he had done a good job and with that came an unexpected weekend for him and his partner in a resort hotel.

 

[Jen Kirley]

Don't get me wrong guys. I am constantly on the floor and talking to the guys. I trying to know what went wrong and how can we prevent it. We are doing training, changing procedures and establishing new quality objectives that we can measure, all this in the last week. Everyone is responsible for the quality of their work, but I'm trying to prevent issue from making it all the way through the process and find a problem at final, that we should of caught at earlier stages. The signing of the statement was not my idea, it was upper management. We have an incentive now, but it will be changed to incorporate quality issues in the plant. A chance to make more money. Thanks for guys thoughts, keep them coming. When you walk into a Quality Manager position that has been let go for over a year and the last Quality Manager was also the Production Manager ( I know, conflict of interest), the quality environment has to be changed and get back on track.

I believe the statement signing was upper management's idea - it's completely devoid of imagination.

Texas Nameplate Company's president described his letting-go proces as the hardest thing he'd ever done, but the employee-powered method payed off big. It required trust, lots of communication, fairness and openness, empowerment, an egalitarian profit sharing program and pride. But when I say pride I don't do so simply in the top management sense of getting employees to take pride in their work. There is a sense of craftsmanship all over the place. TNC's leadership took pride in their own success at letting go so their employees could succeed, as the late Peter Drucker recommended.

 

[TPMB4]

I once worked a spell at BAE Systems and saw one incentive scheme that I liked at the time. Basically they had a suggestion scheme where any savings resulting from the scheme if implemented resulted in the employee getting something like 20% of the savings in the first year as a bonus for the idea. While I was there one guy earnt ?30,000+ in bonus for his one good idea!! Back then that was really worth a lot and he paid off his mortgage in full, took his family on a really nice cruise and still had money left over after his conservatory was finished!!

I do like that idea but IMHO there could be the argument that it is everyone's job to share good ideas to improve things in the process. It is kind of what Quality is about, improvement. The guy got a big payout for doing what is in essence all employee's responsibilities - improvement. I do however like the idea he did well out of it as well as the company. The company saved all that money, year in year out after his suggestion all for a payout that was a small fraction of the savings for that year which they wouldn't have made anyway if he hadn't shared his idea about making his job more efficient.

 

[Jen Kirley]

I once worked a spell at BAE Systems and saw one incentive scheme that I liked at the time. Basically they had a suggestion scheme where any savings resulting from the scheme if implemented resulted in the employee getting something like 20% of the savings in the first year as a bonus for the idea. While I was there one guy earnt ?30,000+ in bonus for his one good idea!! Back then that was really worth a lot and he paid off his mortgage in full, took his family on a really nice cruise and still had money left over after his conservatory was finished!!

I do like that idea but IMHO there could be the argument that it is everyone's job to share good ideas to improve things in the process. It is kind of what Quality is about, improvement. The guy got a big payout for doing what is in essence all employee's responsibilities - improvement. I do however like the idea he did well out of it as well as the company. The company saved all that money, year in year out after his suggestion all for a payout that was a small fraction of the savings for that year which they wouldn't have made anyway if he hadn't shared his idea about making his job more efficient.

There is a lot of variation in what's considered to be rewardable, and by how much. I suggest that variation has done a lot of damage when ideas were rewarded only after there concept was "proven" with the prototype. What about the team who produced that first groundbreaking example of innovation? How demoralizing for all the supporting members of the team. Maybe that was the reason for Deming's Point #11: Eliminate management by objectives.

To add depth we can look at Mind Tools page (I have no affiliation)
- Look at how the process is carried out, not just numerical targets. Deming said that production targets encourage high output and low quality.
- Provide support and resources so that production levels and quality are high and achievable.
- Measure the process rather than the people behind the process.

 

[Wes Bucey]

I think Jim Wynn and Steve Prevette have both made very cogent points.

Most folks know I am a confirmed Demingite, so, of course, I sign on to Red Beads, BUT I think the BEST audience for the Red Beads will be top managers AND new quality manager at this organization.

The types of NC (nonconformances) (A lot of avoidable NCR's from in process inspections and first articles and our shipping department has been getting alot heat from not putting all the required parts in boxes/containers when shipping out.) seems to beg for an intensive error-proofing program, not a mere signature on paper.
[In my mind, there is a decided difference between the NC and the actual NCR (nonconformance report) because the NCR should contain the results of the root cause investigation and the suggestions for Corrective Action (CA), as well as the follow-up evaluation as to whether the CA was effective in preventing future occurrences.]

Obviously, OP has not disclosed the organization or the nature of the business, but my experience and that of many professional consultants is that these kinds of problems stem from an inadequate root cause investigation, stopping at the damning phrase "operator error" without investigation into the conditions and into the circumstances which allowed the operator to make the error in the first place.

I and many of my consultant colleagues have collected obscene amounts of fees from organizations simply because top bosses would rather hear from "the expert from afar" than give credence to the lowly worker on the line who is afraid (Deming said, "Remove fear.") to speak up and say, "There's a problem with the process, not the worker."

 

[TPMB4]

Well, I'm relatively new to Quality and do not know enough to call myself a follower of Deming, Crosby, Juran or any of the quality gurus. Despite that I have learnt through whatever innate commen sense I possess to discover for myself that you have stopped too early if you think it is operator error.

Even if it does look like the operator has not done something or overlooked something it always has something that management could have done to prevent the operator being able to make whatever that mistake was. Whether you call that the process or the system there is something that was not set up right with what the operator is doing.

We have seen defects that we are convinced could only have been done deliberately (in this case by another operator trying it out while the main operator was taking a comfort break or on his lunch and doing it deliberately wrong to drop the operator in it). However we looked at it and created a piece of kit used to make the part that does not allow it to be made incorrectly. Management could have had the process running completely error proofed but we didn't, possibly because we didn't think it needed it. We, as management, were to blame if you like.

Not sure which guru that puts me down as following.