Issuing a Corrective Action against Internal Customers

[mshell]

I have just had a wonderful experience about internal customers.

I have not touched on that subject in any of my training sessions so I was pleasantly surprised when one of our Engineers walked into my office and announced that he was issuing a Corrective Action against his internal supplier. He then continued to say that he has noticed that our QMS is evolving into an internal/external customer satisfaction system. I guess I must be doing something right if they are starting to get it without my having to tell them.

I wanted to share this GOOD quality experience with all of you as I know all too well that the bad experiences out weigh the good most of the time.

 

[Claes Gefvenberg]

I wanted to share this GOOD quality experience with all of you as I know all too well that the bad experiences out weigh the good most of the time.

Great. Thank's for entering a bit of positive energy here. As you point out, we tend to focus too much on the bad stuff. I suppose that's natural, considering what we do for a living, but a positive outlook helps... So:

Let's keep adding positive experiences here.

I for one, would like to hear more examples of spontaneous quality efforts and/or people "getting the picture" like in mshell's example. It really makes my day when these things happen.

/Claes

 

[RoxaneB]

I wanted to share this GOOD quality experience with all of you as I know all too well that the bad experiences out weigh the good most of the time.

Good?!?! More like great! Isn't it such a wonderful feeling when people "get it"...or in some cases, take steps to improve "it"?

When I started with this organization 2.5 years, our Nonconformance System was a mess! Things like:

• People thought a situation was both Corrective and Preventive because they fixed it and then took steps to ensure it didn't happen again
• Verification Plans were "All actions complete."
• Actions plans and root causes were superficial.

My worst department had one person who was just abyssmal...there really is no other word for him. He was the worst of the worst, so I made him my "special project."

For six months, I went over all his Nonconformance Reports with him, in private, pointing out areas where improvement was possible (not corrections...improvement).

And then one day, in a department meeting, we were addressing someone else's Nonconformance and all of a sudden my "special project" started pointing out the errors, ways to improve the documentation and really address the situation, suggesting better actions and verifications...he got it!

To this day, his is one of my strongest advocates for maintaining a detailed and up-to-date system! He helps others to understand how to get the most out of our Nonconformance system.

 

[Tom W]

When I first started here; we had a goal to reduce our number of "Red Forms" (that is our nonconforming notice). It took me several years to convice them to eliminate the goal of zero red forms, because they are actually a good thing. if we don't identify problems we can necessarily fix them. We were putting pressure on the work force to reduce the number of nonconformances, needless to say this was the wrong approach.

We now work to lower or eliminate them through proactive actions and corrective actions. We have actually eliminated or reduced the overall number; however you will never get rid of them - $%!& happens. Just a case of people understanding improvements and tools that are established for a reason and not just more paperwork.