Quality Is Not Just Inspection

S

skdiamond

We’ve seen some quality issues on one of our lines and we have assembled a team to understand why and correct the problem. Unfortunately the solution most of the team members want to follow is to add more and more inspection. Those of us with a Quality/Six Sigma background would like to push more for design changes, process improvements etc, but we are facing resistance to this approach.

Any suggestions from the group? Have others been successful in communicating that quality is not inspection? If so, how did you go about getting your team to accept this?

Thanks, Scott
 

ScottK

Not out of the crisis
Leader
Super Moderator
The first thing to look at is cost:

show the costs involved to senior management.
How much it would be to add inspection in inspector hours over the course of the life of the production (which could be decades) vs the cost of redesign and/or prevention.

Honestly though - sometimes inspection is a reasonable option. If it's one easy characteristic added to a dozen that are already checked the cost is negligible if your inspectors are not absolutely 100% utilized.
That doesn't mean there's an OFI for reducing overall inspection of course...
 

Wes Bucey

Prophet of Profit
You know what might help get the idea across that process improvement is much more effective than increased inspection? Run Deming's Red Bead "game."

One of our Cove moderators, Steve Prevette, has run a very successful program for over 900 participants, which has opened a lot of eyes to the real factors in process improvement. He describes it this way
Steve Prevette, FH
The “Red Bead Experiment” is an interactive teaching tool employed
by Dr. W. Edwards Deming, famed for his 20th century business
management theory and methods. Dr. Deming’s teachings of
his management philosophy in Japan starting in 1950 totally transformed
business practices there, resulting in the “Japanese Industrial
Miracle.” Deming passed away seven years ago
at the age of 93.

In the experiment, audience members form a corporation
of “willing workers,” quality control personnel, a
data recorder and a foreman. The products, white beads, are produced
by dipping a paddle into a supply of beads. The paddle contains
50 bead-sized holes. The bead supply contains “defective” red
beads among the white. The white bead production process is
strictly controlled by an approved procedure.

Various techniques are used to ensure a quality product consisting
of all white beads and no red beads. There are quality control inspectors,
feedback to the workers, merit pay for superior performance,
performance appraisals, procedure compliance, posters and
quality programs.

The experiment, with humor added, demonstrates the effectiveness
or ineffectiveness of the various methods. Control charting and
discussion at the end provide an objective look at what happened
and why.
At my own presentation last night on another Deming topic, I casually asked an audience of 75 quality professionals, "How many are familiar with Deming's Red Beads?" I was stunned when only 3 hands went up - all age contemporaries of mine. None of the younger audience members had even heard of it! (These included a lot of folks with multiple ASQ certifications in management and 6S!)
(http: // www. hanford.gov/rl/uploadfiles/vpp_redbeadreach.pdf - OBSOLETE BROKEN 404 LINK(s) UNLINKED - PLEASE HELP - REPORT POSTS WITH BROKEN LINKS)
 
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SteelMaiden

Super Moderator
Trusted Information Resource
First of all, Wes, I'm surprised at your findings of how many people knew the red bead experiment. :mg:

As far as design vs. inspection...inspection does have its place, but our mantra here when making a decision involving a choice with inspection is "just remember, you cannot inspect quality into the product." That doesn''t mean that inspection is not the route to go, but if you have a cost effective design modification, or process change, you only spend that money once (along with whatever maintenance is required after the initial commissioning), whereas an inspector is forever. You also have to be willing to understand that 100% inspection is not 100% effective. What you need to do is weigh the costs and benefits, risks and gains and do what makes the best sense to your company.
 
Q

QCAce

We’ve seen some quality issues on one of our lines and we have assembled a team to understand why and correct the problem. Unfortunately the solution most of the team members want to follow is to add more and more inspection. Those of us with a Quality/Six Sigma background would like to push more for design changes, process improvements etc, but we are facing resistance to this approach.

Any suggestions from the group? Have others been successful in communicating that quality is not inspection? If so, how did you go about getting your team to accept this?

Thanks, Scott

Great question.
As others have stated, cost/benefit can be a way to show that in the long-term it may be better to change the process. Of course we all know that process change usually involves investment $$ which can be hard to get approved in the short-term budget.

Another answer to your question may lie hidden in your first sentence. Improved data collection and reporting.
Improved reporting on nonconformances found can help with prioritizing budgets for the coming year. Even if increased inspection is implemented, it still means nonconformances are being found, (just maybe further up-stream), and that data can still be collected and Pareto-ized.
In this way at the end of the year instead of saying "We’ve seen some quality issues on one of our lines...", you'll be able to report on the top three re-curring issues from the past xxx months and be able to back it up with factual data.
 
S

sixsigmais

Add more and more inspection is the easy way to reply the customer. Most of the customer dont care about their supplier as long as they are providing "good" product to them.

However, inspection is Non-value added and the company should always know that the product quality is depends on the process but not the inspection. Inspection only helps to filtering the NG parts, it never helps to "produce" the Good part.

Improve the process is not easy but it is always worth in term of cost if think about long term. Your company need a improvement team or six sigma project team to lead on the improvement activities. Else the company is getting more and more inspection, the cycle time getting longer to due the non-value added increase and company are paying more and more in man power cost
 
D

darren1

I don't think it is cost to judge the quality.because some may try to fool people by taking high cost saying it is quality product. To judge the quality,we have to see how it works, what about its components etc.
 
P

prabhatchaddha

We’ve seen some quality issues on one of our lines and we have assembled a team to understand why and correct the problem. Unfortunately the solution most of the team members want to follow is to add more and more inspection. Those of us with a Quality/Six Sigma background would like to push more for design changes, process improvements etc, but we are facing resistance to this approach.

Any suggestions from the group? Have others been successful in communicating that quality is not inspection? If so, how did you go about getting your team to accept this?

Thanks, Scott

Quality is all about making goods and services that are of acceptable level.( Customer satisfaction).Inspection is a vital but not all.Its just a small part.Training might help in breaking the resistance.

Regards
 

John Broomfield

Leader
Super Moderator
We’ve seen some quality issues on one of our lines and we have assembled a team to understand why and correct the problem. Unfortunately the solution most of the team members want to follow is to add more and more inspection. Those of us with a Quality/Six Sigma background would like to push more for design changes, process improvements etc, but we are facing resistance to this approach.

Any suggestions from the group? Have others been successful in communicating that quality is not inspection? If so, how did you go about getting your team to accept this?

Thanks, Scott

Scott,

The teams running the processes that result in nonconforming products are asking for more sorting of good products from bad by someone other than themselves?

Two questions for them:

  1. Why would they want some of their work to add little or no value?
  2. Why would they want more work (inspection) to add no value?

The facts of working life are that our work must add sufficient value for some of that added value to be paid to us so we can look after our families, our communities and ourselves.

Their process-based management system can help them to increase the rate at which their works adds value (faster than the competition) if they choose to use and improve it.

Denying this fact of working life will result in dependency and misery.:whip:

John
 
N

naghee

the current quality issues are shocking. Most of the problems are identifed during assembly process, just a few days from delivery date. This is too late for recasting, heat treating and machining. Our OTD is terrifying. When I went to the management, I was told "Quality is every staffs resposibility".
But, the shop floor do not refelct this philosophy.

This needs immediate action. And this action involves nominating certain people to do random checking. This hopefully will start the line workers to be more careful, and do the self-check before releasing the WIP to the next process. I am empowering the incoming and despatch to be more cautious, and train them to pick up anamolies.

The advantage i have is, being a quality engineer, I report to the Engineering manager. This reduces (does not eliminate) the resistance most quality prefessionals face from Engineering group.

Another arena I am exploring is to introduce Lean ideas to Engineering team. I have experienced that Engineering staff are the hardest people to get the lean ideas through.

not sure if I have answered you question or made it more confusing.
 
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