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About Adrian Flores
Expertise
I can answer questions regarding Labor Intensive Manufacturing (assembly), from the Manufacturing and Quality Standpoint. Supplier Quality, Process Improvement and optimization, Error proofing, Process Control and Waste (Muda) elimination

Experience
Manufacturing professional with over 15 years of experience in Quality, Production and Engineering for Assembly Operations. Automotive, Consumer and Telecommunications. Background includes Quality and Engineering management, Quality Assessments, private and government entities, Training and Line Transfers under Six Sigma and Lean Manufacturing environments

Education/Credentials
Lean Manufacturing College, University of Tennessee Six Sigma Black Belt, Six Sigma Academy; Mistake Proofing Trainer, Resource Engineering; ISO/TS 16949 Lead Auditor, GSC; ISO 14000 Internal Auditor, KPMG; VDA 6.3 Internal Auditor, ISO 9000 Internal Auditor, Intertek Services; Green Belt Trainer,Six Sigma Academy; JIT Techniques, AlliedSignal,

You are here: Experts > Industry > Plant Automation > Manufacturing > QC

Manufacturing - QC

Expert: Adrian Flores - 10/21/2009

Question
QUESTION: I'm from plastic injection mould manufacture line. I'm in-charge QC dept. I have few doubts.
1)Any ideas or system can be implemented for reducing mistakes make repeatedly due to human careless majority?
2)Majority staffs are not willing to give cooperation to check those jobs that they carry out(before, in-progress and after), thus a lot quality issues appear. Any experiences and suggestion would like to share?
3)Company's target for each mould not more than 3 times trial, but result seem still not achieve yet. The reason is less checking before deliver and cause issue appear repeatedly. Any comments?
4)When mistake made, majority staffs are not willing to give cooperation to study and analyze the root cause and come out a corrective and preventive actions. Any experiences can be shared?
5)Any ideas how to make quality control to be more efficiency?

Thank you very much.

ANSWER: 1) Mistakes are part of human nature. every process involving humans is prone to fail due mistakes, careless, etc.

A good engineer setting up a production flow will create a process that prevents those human errors or omissions to become defects. The use of FMEAs to uncover those weak control points and the use of failsafe techniques, will yield a better quality.

Of course, discipline issues that can go from careless to tampering should be dealt with from the H.R. perspective. A good morale is good for quality, but not substitute of a good process.

On Molding processes, machine set-ups and mold maintenance are key factors to create a robust process.

2) People not willing to do what they are paid for, is a discipline problem. however, I tend to disagree that less checking generate quality issues. Quality issues come from a poorly setup process, and pushing the staff to compensate for it by 'catching' the defects will create an environment that can be perceived as unwillingness, while in reality would be frustration.

3) see 1 and 2

4) People involved on process analysis, should be trained to do this, and should be given a clear perspective of the expectation. they need to be able to act and should receive recognition for their efforts. What you are experiencing, sound to me more like a management/leadership issue. Of course I am giving you an blind opinion, there are other unique circumstances that could be part of the problem.

5) Keep it simple. create a sturdy process and ease the " after the fact" inspections. work with people morale and accept that people makes mistakes when setting up the process. identify the factors that cause defects and establish control those factors instead of the end product.

These are just some of the vast possible actions that you can take. read some books, have some training. Six Sigma is a good theme to search.

Good Luck with your task.

Adrian

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Good day Mr.Adrian. I've a question below need your advises and example given if available, thanks.
Currently company's QC department handles non-conforming report (NCR). In order to reduce the cost of NCR, company did come out a "penalty" system for those who make repeated mistakes and cause company lost a huge amount.
The system is which staffs need to pay certain amount for the mistake that they made.
Of course, all the while staffs are all unhappy even boycott and not willing to give cooperation during QC does case study with relevant PIC once mistake appear. I understood their feeling.
For you information, year 2006 cost of NCR = RM305K(3% of in-house sales), 2007 = RM372K(6%) and 2008 = RM224K(6%). RM = Ringgit Malaysia.
In fact all the loses can be ours annual bonus if we can save it as much as possible, right.
Beside penalty system, company also thing about giving incentive to those who no mistake on that particular month. Mr.Adrian, do you have any ideas on that also, please share.
We look forward to your great advice %26 ideas given. Thanks.

Regards,
TC.OW

Answer
I would be unhappy too.

People makes mistakes. It is a fact of life that engineer in charge of the process should understand and take in account while setting up a process. Penalizing the operators for mistakes that they can't avoid will only create an unfavorable work environment. If you were to make someone responsible for the NCR numbers, is the engineer in charge.

People that is unwilling to work and is boycotting production, should be fired, not penalized. That is a different issue relating to Personnel Dept.

Providing bonus or prizes to recognize people that makes better than normal work on quality or production rate is a good practice. This is also true for the engineer that designs a process that, because of the use of poka-yokes, avoids that the mistakes of the operators (again, they always make mistakes) become defects.

A good work environment will payoff in Quality and Production rate. Communicate with the operator what are the company goals and what are their contribution.

The best companies are the ones with the best people. You make them the best people by providing a good work environment, rewarding the good employees and removing (not penalizing) the bad employees.

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