Collect the Evidence

All manufacturing companies have quality problems. These problems typically consume 15 to 25% of sales revenue. Problems of this magnitude must not be treated lightly. A sound, structured approach is necessary or the problem will just continue to bleed.

The first task is to meet with the smart people in the company and discuss what could possibly be going wrong. There's value in this because it may be a known problem, something that has happened in the past. But once you have checked the obvious, other ideas are just opinions and best guesses and they are likely to waste more time. It's important to keep in mind that the meeting can only bring up existing knowledge. If there's something new or unexpected happening, it's not likely to be identified in a brainstorming session. There are hundreds of things that could be going wrong but only one or two actually are going wrong.

All processes communicate their behaviour. The problem is that we do not speak the same language. We need to use tools to tap into this 'voice of the process.' In my experience, when you tap into this voice, you always learn something new.

As an example, if your process is a dispensing process, start taking before and after weights to better understand the dispensing process. Learn how the process varies from item-to-item, shift-to-shift, week-to-week. If you use ovens, use thermocouples to see how temperature varies from top-to-bottom, front-to-back and over time. I've used tachometers before to measure the speed of a moving conveyor. The belt speed was set to 30 feet per minute but the tachometer showed us that the belt was getting hung up somewhere and the belt speed would stagger a little. Not visible by eye, but measureable with the right tool. And the stagger was the root cause of a quality problem we were chasing. This was not identified in the initial brainstorming session.

Use measuring tools to learn about process behaviour. Evidence trumps opinion when you're solving quality problems.