Hello
From a long time I was thinking to open this thread. The idea is to exchange knowledge for different ways when it comes to root cause analysis and problem solving.
Most of us here work in environments where we encounter issues every day and have to solve them following certain approaches. Learning is endless.
Long time ago I found a post here in the forum where it was written that a Japanese professor used to gather team of 5 people and send them for an hour to observe a mfg. process. Afterwards everyone had to write what he/she had seen during this one hour of time. At the end all 5 people had seen different things. I really liked this method and understood how many different approaches actually one can use to find a problem and what we all see is different.
I will share some of the methods I use and hope you guys can share too your way of handling issues. So I most often rely on:
1 ) observing at least 10 full cycles of mfg. line or a process, because people tend to return to their habits shortly after I appear on the line to investigate. Then I can often see what really is wrong and where is the problem.
2 ) Always try to have friendly talks with operators on the line and most of the time they are the key to finding the root cause.
3 ) Another method I use from time to time is to check cameras ( I really don't like this one ) but I often see how careless people could be especially on night shifts when management is out of factory. Then I can use what I had seen on the cameras to ask proper questions the operators which worked and skip key process steps.
4 ) Trying to manufacture a product by myself with current standard (often see so many gaps) including process design issues and product design issues as well.
Thank you.
From a long time I was thinking to open this thread. The idea is to exchange knowledge for different ways when it comes to root cause analysis and problem solving.
Most of us here work in environments where we encounter issues every day and have to solve them following certain approaches. Learning is endless.
Long time ago I found a post here in the forum where it was written that a Japanese professor used to gather team of 5 people and send them for an hour to observe a mfg. process. Afterwards everyone had to write what he/she had seen during this one hour of time. At the end all 5 people had seen different things. I really liked this method and understood how many different approaches actually one can use to find a problem and what we all see is different.
I will share some of the methods I use and hope you guys can share too your way of handling issues. So I most often rely on:
1 ) observing at least 10 full cycles of mfg. line or a process, because people tend to return to their habits shortly after I appear on the line to investigate. Then I can often see what really is wrong and where is the problem.
2 ) Always try to have friendly talks with operators on the line and most of the time they are the key to finding the root cause.
3 ) Another method I use from time to time is to check cameras ( I really don't like this one ) but I often see how careless people could be especially on night shifts when management is out of factory. Then I can use what I had seen on the cameras to ask proper questions the operators which worked and skip key process steps.
4 ) Trying to manufacture a product by myself with current standard (often see so many gaps) including process design issues and product design issues as well.
Thank you.
