Totally against written procedures!

Q

qualityboi

#31
Couldn't Resist (Devil's Advocate)

We brought in a "skilled engineer" from Intel, he entered the fab cleanroom with exposed skin, set lot boxes on the floor (a clean room no no) and then proceeded to scrap a 25 wafers on a dryetch tool. I don't know maybe all electrical engineers are taught how to use a Tel etcher! :bonk: One may have a PHD and be extremely skilled in their field but may be incompetent in using the tools and equipment of the company.
Here we have a pretty complex work order system that captures project management and associated costs. I don't care if the person has a double E or or PHD, they still need the work instruction in order to correctly operate the system and accurately enter in data. The whole idea of work instructions is for people to adhere to a set standard of steps where not doing those steps accurately could generate nonconforming material or costly non value added activities.
 
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Jen Kirley

Quality and Auditing Expert
Staff member
Admin
#33
António Vieira said:
The only thing they have, in order to do their job correctly, is a list of activities that was made during the quality Design and development process.
This isn’t any procedure; it’s made in MSProject and serves also as a record of the activity being done.
When he starts a new work he has to fill that list of activities with the dates that are supposed to be necessary to satisfy the customer’s requirement of scheduled dates....The quality audit is made specially around the correct filling of that activity list.
Arguably these are procedures, just not exacting ones--as the type of work and company's quality needs deem appropriate. This description even includes a set of criteria for accomplishing the work as per the plan, which is then auditable.

To compare with this I could show you a set of engineers that are also highly trained outside of their organization, but for whom exacting and meticulously followed procedures are critical.

It's all about what is appropriate for the activities and mission. In general it's agreed not to make bookish procedures that serve no clear benefit.

I also agree, this is a good discussion. :applause:
 

Bev D

Heretical Statistician
Staff member
Super Moderator
#34
Cari Spears said:
And there you have it in a nutshell.
(regarding the apparent fact that Anotonio is dealing with professionals and not unskilled workforce)

EXCEPT that my experience at Honda - and other palces - was completely with an unskilled work force. Absolutley no written instructions. and employees switched functions every 2 hours - tons of cross training. training was from one employee to the next.
we knew if someone 'got it wrong' or wasn't 'fast enough' becuase we emplyed visual workplace principles and poke yokes that made it impossible not to know. I utilized these techniques in later places of employment with great success.

the trick is to think 'backwards'. Dont' think about how you could possibly get by without work instructions think what you woudl need to do if you couldnt' have work instructions: in other words, figure how to make it work instead of coming up with all the erasons why it won't. You'd be amazed what cell layout, employee empowerment, poke yokes, visual clues, employee knowledge and understanding will do for you.

thinking of it in another way: an employee who knows the job and knows why things are done the way they are doesnt' need teh instruciton - in fact teh good ones never refer to them once they are trained because they KNOW the process. only those who don't know it need the document.

think about how often you refer to written instructions in the everyday tasks of your life. when do you really need instructions? why do you need them? in the business environment that si what you fix in order to eliminate instructions...

It's not easy, but it's actually less work in the long run. and better quality.
 

Bev D

Heretical Statistician
Staff member
Super Moderator
#35
qualityboi said:
Here we have a pretty complex work order system that captures project management and associated costs. I don't care if the person has a double E or or PHD, they still need the work instruction in order to correctly operate the system and accurately enter in data. The whole idea of work instructions is for people to adhere to a set standard of steps where not doing those steps accurately could generate nonconforming material or costly non value added activities.
So let's think about this: you 'need' the work instruction in order to correctly operate the software system. so in order to eliminate the work instruction, you need to eliminate the complexity! why is the system so complicated? what can you do to simplify it and/or mistake proof it. think about the non value-add teh complex system itself is generating. The user simply wants to use the work order system (ostensibly to make life easier than manual trackignand calculations?) to make other work easier. something is wrong here...

If we change the way we look at the "Problem" we get a much different answer. any process that 'requires' the user to constantly refer to written instructions is a very poor system. fix the complexity.

Note: I dont' normally include checklists and hard coded software routines as 'work instructions' these are mistake reduction and elimination devices.
 
K

Kevin H

#36
In general, I agree with a lot that has been said in this thread - involve workers in writing and maintaining the WI's, give them reasons/root causes why some thing have to be done in certain ways, use visual cues when possible, simplify activities as much as possible, etc.

On the other hand, as qualityboi's example shows, even with trained, intelligent, engineers it doesn't always work, and a detailed written work instruction might help. I graduated from a private university in Pittsburgh that is well known for the quality of its engineering and science programs. I remember a classmate who graduated with a dual engineering major and was employed by Westinghouse. One of my close friends was also employed by Westinghouse. Westinghouse ended up needing people to go into containment areas on nuclear reactors to do some maintenance activities, and the new engineers were elected as the available extra bodies. They received extensive training in what they were to do, as well as the appropriate safety equipment usage. From my friend, I learned that the first time my classmate was sent into the containment area, he started arguing with the experienced technicians who were directing him via radio. He spent enough time arguing over what he was to do and how he was to do it that he "burned up" his year's allowable radiation exposure without doing the job he'd been sent in to do.

I wasn't really surprised by the story - it was typical of my classmate - very intelligent, but not a good firm foundation in reality/practical sense.
 

Helmut Jilling

Auditor / Consultant
#37
Bev D said:
...the trick is to think 'backwards'. Dont' think about how you could possibly get by without work instructions think what you woudl need to do if you couldnt' have work instructions: in other words, figure how to make it work instead of coming up with all the erasons why it won't. You'd be amazed what cell layout, employee empowerment, poke yokes, visual clues, employee knowledge and understanding will do for you.

excellent point. I often say that after you have done everything else you can do, then make work instructions and train to fill in the rest.

However, procedures or work instructions also help to capture all the great things we have learned.
 

Antonio Vieira

Involved - Posts
Trusted Information Resource
#38
One thing, I’ve never seen are procedures or work instructions for the highest levels of management in organizations.
Are these guys clever than the normal workers in the factory?
Do they know their work so well that they don’t need procedures?
No!
The answer is simple, they make, or tell someone to make, work instructions for those they think need them – the shop floor workers..., for them they assume that’s stupid!

The workers in the factory need so many procedures the same way their leaders do. What they really need is to be excellent in their tasks, and that isn’t possible with just a paper to follow.
What they really need is training and empowerment, not procedures!

Have ever heard about the Maslow hierarchy of needs?
People need self esteem...
Give a guy a paper of what he has to do - a “rule”, isn’t the best way to get self-esteem.

I’ve passed through all this. I’ve made lots of WI. I trained people about the correct use of them. I passed the responsibility of actualization of those WI for the users.
Things only started to work as a team in the department, when everybody knew perfectly well what to do and there weren’t any papers tell anybody how to do their tasks.
During more than 5 years process audits we didn’t get any non conformance, and no customer complaints!

Please, up grade to a next level of quality team work!:)
 

Jen Kirley

Quality and Auditing Expert
Staff member
Admin
#39
Arguably some upper management could do with some procedures to guide or moderate their behaviors. :rolleyes:

So it really comes down to needs of the organization and/or personnel. I can attest that I could have well used some procedures to offer guidance in my teaching in the past two years, sigh. Some better training could also have helped, but there is so much to remember that I would have enjoyed having more to refer to, so as to ensure I am on course. Otherwise I can, and have forgotten something important and been told "You should have known that." Ouch! The larger the risk or consequence, the more such guidance ought to be available.

Procedures shouldn't make users feel dumb or not like a team. If a set of tasks must be done the same way to ensure a consistent or critically accurate outcome, I will always argue for written guidance. Without it, how do you know who or what is right? Humans are subject to "creep" in all sorts of behaviors. Normalization, desensitization, call it what you will.

If it's not needed for any reason, don't use procedures. They can be useless and worse if they are pressed without need, poorly designed, etc.. But there will always be a place for procedures and work instructions in the professional world.
:2cents:
 
J

Joe Cruse

#40
António Vieira said:
One thing, I’ve never seen are procedures or work instructions for the highest levels of management in organizations.
Are these guys clever than the normal workers in the factory?
Do they know their work so well that they don’t need procedures?
No!
The answer is simple, they make, or tell someone to make, work instructions for those they think need them – the shop floor workers..., for them they assume that’s stupid!

The workers in the factory need so many procedures the same way their leaders do. What they really need is to be excellent in their tasks, and that isn’t possible with just a paper to follow.
What they really need is training and empowerment, not procedures!
In our case, our Level 1 and 2 manuals in our QMS "kinda" ARE written procedures for upper management. That said, there are no formal, written procedures for the boss to do day-to-day business tasks with, as there are with some of the day-to-day stuff down in the plant operations.

Some of that goes back to the competency and training of personnel hired to do the work, both at the shop floor and in the vice president of the company's office. Whether it's a new shop floor employee or a new department head, both will HAVE to have some training for the job, no matter what their education and experience is. It's just that, in our case anyway, we look for people for management positions that are much more competent than what is required to run shop floor work (although we specify competency/requirements for shop floor employees also). Folks like this likely don't need a set of written procedures to carry out the day-to-day stuff they do, even if a lot of time passes between instances of performing a given management task. That may or may not be true of those hired in to do work with less competency required. Not everyone running shop floor tasks is going to be competent to be top management, but I hope the reverse is true (not always!). Even then, you see situations where it's probably a good idea for top management to have a set of written procedures. Of course, in extreme cases, the law of the land steps in and writes said procedures for top management (think SOX).

All that said, I see your point clearly. But without some kind of formal procedure, what do you train to? In our lab, I hired in with a college chemistry background, but still had to be trained to run the wet chemistry analysis tests specific to our applications. After training, I could run the tests without consulting the procedure. 12 years later, I can still run most without consulting the procedure, but there are a couple that I've not run in over 5 years, and would need to have the procedure in front of me to properly run the test.

Again, bravo on this topic! Very good discussion. :applause:
 
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