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Adding a final inspector to the parachute folders would not have done much good. Neither would adding an inspector to the stove factory. The contamination on the metal that was painted over was probably invisible. It’s easy to blame the painter. Just like it’s easy to blame the clerk whose error was found by the auditor or checker. But that’s not getting to the root cause of the problem. Edward Deming, the famous Quality guru believed that all inspection should be eliminated from a factory or office. His point being that the process should be designed so that it isn’t even possible to make an error. For example, it’s impossible to insert a floppy disc incorrectly—they only go in one way. At the fast food restaurant, the cash registers have pictures of the product so that the clerk won’t key in the incorrect charge or give the wrong change. Some companies got the idea that if the operator in the factory had to actually put his signature on the product, that there would be fewer defects. We’ve all purchased garments with the little tag, “Inspected by Number 37.” And that was the garment with the missing buttonhole. None of these work very well. Remember trying to find the 32 F’s? It is Management’s job is to give their people processes that work. The stove factory needed a pre-cleaning step prior to painting to be effective. Inserting an inspector or rewarding the painter for defect-free paint jobs would not work very well. Management’s job is also to make it very clear what the customer is expecting. The bottom line is that in an effort to improve the quality received by the customer, management often attempts to either add more inspectors, seeking out offenders for blame or to incentivize |
the producers. The effort has to be put into improving the processes themselves so that variability and ambiguity are eliminated. There’s an old saying, “Tell me how I’m measured and I’ll tell you how I’ll behave.” A survey by the American Productivity and Quality Center found that only 38.7% of employees thought that there were good, fair performance measures where they worked. People want to be measured. They need to be measured. The only people who don’t like to be measured are the poor performers. Metrics are used in factories to control the workforce. These metrics include simple things like pieces per hour or percent defective pieces per day. Use of metrics such as these not only give the employees an idea of what’s expected of them, it allows management to react to the situation, correct any problems, understand how to improve, and to establish improvement objectives. While applications of metrics are common in a factory, they are not typical in an office. As a result of having no metrics, quality problems remain hidden and improvement efforts never get off the ground. America is transcending from the manufacturing age to the service age, much like we did before, going from a farming economy to a manufacturing economy. About 90 per cent of jobs in the United States are in the service industry but most of the books and articles about quality focus on factories. That’s because it’s easy for someone to notice a problem with a product, it’s
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