Inspecting Quality into Product - How to react?

Jen Kirley

Quality and Auditing Expert
Staff member
Admin
#21
My question is not about how much inspection, but what type.

Are you inspecting the same things as your customer?

Is your customer rejecting good product?

It is time for a careful reckoning of what the customer believes is acceptable, how often the customer is finding unacceptable products of what nature and what lots they were.

Get a second look at the items your customer said are flawed. Appraise and categorize these flaws. Did your group miss them? Do you agree with the rejections?

I have seen disagreement of what constitutes flaws. It can be a laborious project to reach consensus on goodness, especially on visual inspections, but it must be done. I have seen great rewards from establishing identical standards at both manufacturing and receipt inspection ends. Do you have these now? Are they being consistently applied?

Further, it's worth proposing that you align your inspection methods with that of your customer. When we can determine that the customer's inspection methods are not only accurate but consistent, (not easy to establish this but you can inquire about their methods) it becomes easier to believe that whatever preventive measures we take to eliminate defects will actually succeed.
 
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Tim Folkerts

Super Moderator
#22
Why are the Customer Quality Assurance able to catch the defects & not the Quality Dept ..... is the inspector sleeping?
There are a pair of related factors that I think ought to to highlighted; the statistics of sampling and the effectiveness of 100% inspection. If the customer is finding defects you missed, that doesn't mean their inspectors are better.

In the case of 100% inspection, your inspectors may catch 95% of defects, but some will still get through. Their inspectors might actually be much worse at finding derfects, only catching 50% of defects, but as long as there are some defects to find, they will find at least some of them. They don't need to be bettter inspectors to find defects you missed!

Secondly, the simple truth of sampling is that some "good" lots will be rejected, and some "bad" lots will be accepted. Such a "bad" lot that is accepted would quite likely be rejected after a second inspection, whether done by the customer or by your own inspectors. In this case, your inspector was just unlucky, but such "unluckiness" as an integral part of the statistics of sampling plans.

Bottom line #1: If you want the inspectors to find no defects, don't build defects!
Bottom line #2: Sampling is great for catching really bad lots and accepting really good lots, but it is a guessing game for marginal lots.


Tim F
 

Jim Wynne

Staff member
Admin
#23
Bottom line #1: If you want the inspectors to find no defects, don't build defects!
Bottom line #2: Sampling is great for catching really bad lots and accepting really good lots, but it is a guessing game for marginal lots.
Tim F
Can there be two bottom lines?:D

Tim has captured the essence of the problem. If you chant the Zero Defects mantra while simultaneously trying to devise an efficacious sampling plan, you're caught in an inescapable logical contradiction. As Tim points out, as defect levels approach zero, the likelihood of catching them with sampling diminishes proportionately. "Fixing" the sampling plan does nothing to help the process.
 
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