Why Do QC Programs Fail?

Yes, failure to anchor the change in the culture will do it every time.

Many people feel that making change is about setting down new processes and getting everyone on board.

However, the implemented changes need to be checked at regular intervals to insure that they are being followed. The tendency is for the culture to revert back to what it was doing prior to the change, much like diet change usually results in a lapse back to old habits.

That is the biggest problem when management dictates, do as I say, not as I do. And don't take it seriously.

Had a manager that said when he makes a decision, he'll plant his flag.......and then added... ^{"not too deep though, in case somebody kicks it out from under him."} Fortunately, we rarely saw him, unless there was a photographer from the local paper around running a story.

You wrote, "As long as profit remains the top priority, quality will suffer..."

I beg to differ. Bad quality will drive your customers to your competition. Profit = Quality.

Works for us. We get a significant amount of business because we deliver a better product than our competition.

Many companies struggle with quality issues. If the corporate culture is such that it generates inferior quality, then driving changes are needed.

The problem with fixing quality and why many companies fail is because they do not understand how to determine what changes to make and how to execute those changes in a lasting way.

Changing a company is a multi-step process. You need to:

Create a vision for the desired change.

Generate a coalition of leaders to push that vision forward and remove people that are obstacles to that vision.

Establish a sense of urgency and importance.

Communicate that change vision to the company employees.

Set a series of goals (short and long) with metrics so that everyone can see the target and the progress.

Lastly, keep tending the garden so that the change becomes rooted in the culture of the company.

The last point is the one most companies fail to do and the chief reason programs fail to stick.

I think that we're thinking the same way. Maybe not.

In my mind, Quality = Profit. I also get repeat customers, as well as a lot of word of mouth business due to the quality of my work..........it's much better than most.

You said, Profit = Quality.......................tell that to China. _{Or microsoft.}

Quality is either there, or it isn't. Profit, in particular, short term profit, can be derived from many different methods. One of which is skimping on quality, _vista. It's done all of the time...........................I believe, to the long term detriment to the companies that employ the practice.

So, while I don't think that it's sound business practice, I still think that in many, not all, businesses, profit margins and how things appear to the stock holders, trump a focus on quality, and lead to products being released that could be a lot better. _{Bill could explain it better than me.}

In the iron ore plants I used to run, annual operating hours at quality were all that counted - a very key member of the department/shift managers group was the kid that ran the PM monitoring group.

His input and effort was worth many hours per plant per year - an exceptional kid fortunately.

That would be expecially important in foundry work, where SPC would play a very important role.

INO, some posters or their managers never really understood or bought into a quality program, which would drive it to failure.

When I first learned quality, it was "Quality is Free" by Philip B. Crosby.

Like Del says, anyone committed to quality over profits has gotten the dirty end of the stick eventually, as the management seems to always back off when the going gets tough. it is just overhead to them..

I think that there is a natural law at work here.. not about the impossiblity of acheiving quality.. thats easy... or about diminishing returns.. that's bull.

The natural law is that organizations are defined by the real goals, written or unwritten, that govern their behaviour. When profit is the real goal, versus the apparent goal, only the real goal will ultimately be realized. All else which does not support the real goal will be sacrificed, and is only commited to in support of the real goal.

Quality systems fail in exact proportion to the management lack of understanding of how Quality systems ultimately support the profit goal.

chris

Exactly!

QC programs are implemented and taught from middle management down. I doubt the CEOs and CFOs even attend..............for them, regardless of what program is implemented, the running of the company remains a numbers game.

The same unreasonable schedules and demands will come from the top, and will be reflected in the end product.

For true quality to exist, there has to be a, "real", commitment to quality in upper management.

Old saying: "You can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear"

This is especially difficult if 3/4 of the way through the engineering development effort the marketing people decide that the ears will be marketed to people who are looking to buy silk purses. So there ought to be a corollary that good something like "Salesmen's words are poor quality tools"

And one of my favorites: "If you can measure it you can make it"

Here you often have the case of products that are full of critical elements that cannot be measured or evaluated until they are in the possession and use of the customer. Big feedback loops like this are bad.

I once worked for a machinery manufacturer that eliminated a lot of ball bearing failures and field service expense when they put an electronic in-situ diameter measuring device right on the cylindrical grinder that finished the shaft bearing mounting diameters to size (+/- ,0001" dia.) measuring the size while the grinding of the journal was being done. Year was 1961, IIRC.

Ed Weldon

One of the biggest problems often seen with new quality programs is a lack of understanding of what the current problems are. Each quality program is aimed at a specific set of issues. If that set, and the set of real issues the company has, do not overlay, the quality program can easily reduce the quality of the company. Many times the "new" quality program is aimed at the same issues that the old one was, Seldom does this solve the problem. I have seem many quality programs fail over the years, often, not soon enough.

I believe there are six things that can cause quality programs to fail.

First, do you even need a quality program? Do you really believe that a quality program will improve how your Company builds its products? How have you come to that conclusion?

Second, you must define your customer base [target market]. Does your product fulfill their needs? What features do your customers want? What differentiates your product from the many like it? Do they expect upgrades?

Third, you must decide if you want to lead or follow. Leading can be great, but everyone will expect big things from you. Following can often be the easier road, but there are certain connotations associated with following. This can be the biggest decision you'll make.

Fourth, you must define what quality means to you. A bad product built the same way every time is a quality product, is it not?

Fifth, you must decide how much of a quality program is right for you. Some go "full on", top to bottom. Others pick and choose.

Lastly, stay committed to the program. Revisit the philosophy periodically, make the necessary corrections and stay on track.

Lots of good comments on this one! I've been in the quality racket since 1972 (never as a consultant, thank God!) and I've seen a whole lot of energy wasted in this field to get a fairly small improvement.

It's very useful to understand what the customer thinks is a "quality product". This is usually not what you think it is, and it very certainly isn't what the poor guys on the production line think it is!

The boss needs to believe that delivering the best possible quality, on time, with good customer service, at a FAIR price (fair to both buyer and seller) is the key to continued success.

"Change is inevitable, except from some vending machines and carnival workers". Since "quality" is not a static target, you need to get good at making the necessary change happen. Change is usually the result of extra work done by people who will never feel much of the benefit of that change....some one must lead them to, and through, change. This usually requires the use of the oldest form of leadership, the one that's embodied by the young platoon leader who jumps up out of the trench and yells 'Follow Me!'. The results can often be personally tragic, but the old saw about 'no guts, no glory' applies.

The boss needs to be the exemplar of every virtue the company needs to deliver a quality product and survive. People won't follow a hypocrite for long, even if you are paying them.

I'm not a "quality expert" whatever the hell that is, I'm just a schmo trying to do a good job. so my perspective might be a bit skewed. But if you ask me, organized and bureaucratized "quality management systems" are usually a complete and total waste of time money and resources and completely unneeded to make a quality product. 99.999% of the time a company implements these things because their customer has drank the ISO 9001 kool-aid and has insisted that their vendors do the same, at gunpoint if needbe. How did that work out in Jonestown? Not well if I recall. If you were making a quality product before, having such a program won't improve your quality one iota because you were already doing a good job, and has a real potential of driving it down because of the extra cost and time involved, forcing you to cut corners in order to meet delivery dates and costs. If you made crap before, an ISO 9001 program MIGHT improve your quality, but it also might cause you to lower your quality even more (for the same reasons.). all a ISO 9001 program does is give you something you can hang on the wall and show your customer during his walk-through to help sell the job. The cost-benefit analysis usually is very negative. THAT is why they fail. They were DESIGNED to fail. They are busy-work and whitewash.

Rorschach - I share your attitude toward ISO 9001. But in defense of that stuff I have to allow that it has helped a lot of people buy groceries. On the other hand my cynical side tended to view it as just another $5 or $10/hour added to the work center rates.

In the years when I was working I'd often start up a new supplier. In those situations when they told me that they had done the ISO9001 thing I'd reply "I'll tell our purchasing people about that."

But what I was really interested in was whether they were any good at doing what they were trying to sell us and whether they had their act together. What it inevitably boiled down to was a core staff of really bright people with first rate fabrication skills and production engineering talents who worked well together under a great leadership structure. (Often just what was under the hat of the shop boss.)

On the other hand what constitutes failure of a quality program like ISO 9001 (or any other consultant's magic potion)? If it helps keep the business healthy, if increased profits are a result of just the sales promotion value of the "cert" or even reduced scrap, rework and warranty costs more than the program cost, then where's the failure?

I usually concluded that as long as the supplier was working within its established range of capabilities doing business with them was up to whatever our buyers and contract people could work out.

Ed Weldon

don't confuse ISO9000 with a quality program such as TQM, since 2000 release ISO standards did a great leap towards quality, these are not yet the same.

By definition ISO 9000 is concerned with quality management systems: for design development, purchasing, production, installation and servicing of products and services.

where TQM by definition encompasses every aspect of the business and organization, not just the systems used listed above but also, human resources, finance and marketing. Basically every system in the company from the top to the bottom.

TQM is more pervasive and demanding literally requiring the transformation of the organization.

I.E. they take all the bad of ISO9000 and impose it on the entire organization. How is this an improvement?

If I recall it correctly, you start your ISO-9000 application by writing down all the stuff your organization does for quality. Then you go look for proof that you're doing the stuff you said you were doing.

I'm just guessing, but I bet somewhere along the line, you got caught up in a situation where some out-of-touch, upper level twit started writing down what THEY THOUGHT THEY'D LIKE EVERYONE TO DO, instead of what they really did.

Tends to sour a body on the whole concept when that happens.

Yes, except that "out of touch upper level twit" is some bureaucrat deep in the bowels of ISO. ISO dictates how you are supposed to handle things like non-conformance and stuff like that (or at least it used to) and the paper generated often outweighs the work to fix the problem in the first place.

In the early days of ISO, an average "how we do it" document was 20 to 40 pages long. Now they are about one or two pages, often covering what had been covered in four or five documents. One thing that surprized me is that the shorter ones are often much better than the ones they replaced. Many quality programs start out much more complex than they need to be. This helps them fail.

ISO can go very wrong

Depends on who writes the SOP's

a common method is a team from management & or administration , not someone who has the foggiest idea of what actually happens in the normal course of events

This sets off an endless cycle

audit, meeting, revision, meeting, revision, meeting, revision, meeting, meeting, meeting...

Repeat

We actually had the engineers write the procedures, which why they were so long. The way we shortened them was to change the procedures from "how things were done" to "what things were done." The major improvement was that it allowed procedure preferences as long as the final goal was achieved.

wsjackman -- GA. This is important. High level procedural documents are hard to revise when revision is necessary. Nit picking details and trade secrets don't belong there to any greater extent than a reference to a suitable document or master computer file, which can then be released, distributed, maintained and archived as appropriate. .......Ed Weldon

the improvement is that EVERYONE has to buy into it. And if the culture (meaning people) is not there to except it, change the people who are.

Rorschach,

that isn't what it is supposed to be. I wouldn't argue too hard that lots of programs have become like that, through rampant misunderstanding... but.

A Quality program is simply a control system. Like any control system, it is nearly an absolute best method to achieving the system goals.

Nobody would argue that an Air Handling system is a control system.. designed ideally to condition air, and deliver air of specific temperature, humidity, flow, pressure etc.

the paradigm for ISO is exactly the same. Its a control system.

What goes wrong with Quality is not the system.. its the people who consistenly do not understand what the system is supposed to do, and massive miscommunication about what the system is.... and how it works.

most people are subjective in it.. and just see what you see.. paperwork.

If you really need to acheive a goal... then the control system model (goal seeking system) is THE way. I find this inarguble... all else is a cheap approximation of it.

It is vitally important that people understand that it is simply a control system, and that Management must be 100% committed to the goals.

Without the commitment, and the clarity of understanding.. of course it is a mess.

chris

BZZZT! wrong answer. you can achieve the exact same end, with NO paperwork WHATSOEVER if the organization is small enough that verbal communication is all that is needed. therefore ISO is nothing but an overhead cost.

Small company, sure, but try telling that to Motorola, The developed 6 sigma after TQM, (not Total Quality Management, but Toyota Quality Management) in the 1980's.

ISO is not for everybody, An ASME shop I had done consulting with was ISO, thinking that would generate sales having this program in place.

After 7 years of being ISO certified, I asked what exactly it did for them, after reflection, they never renewed it.

Which means that after the company has already implemented TQM in place, therefore ISO certification is easier to attain ? cmiiw ?

It isn't so much easier, its who much payback or savings after implementing

no paperwork...?

when equipment fails in the field.. and you are getting sued... and then your quality need some evidence. (aka paperwork)

or else it will cost you lots of money. and the loss of customers, etc..

so there is quality... and then there is quality.

'evidence' is a big part of ISO... just as in a court of law.. companies don't get to bullshyte their way through it. it is real, tangible, and factual.

this answers the question "how do you know you have the quality you specified?"

the answer... "we have accurate, and reviewed factual evidence of compliance"

no bs.

sorry to disagree with you.. but I'm not disrespecting you... just debating.

Chris

true evidence in court is imperative, but it is still an overhead cost. you have to weigh the continuing and constant cost of the paperwork against the POTENTIAL risk of a lawsuit. the value of your product and the potential risk to life if it fails must all factor into it. if the value is low and the risk is low, it is cheaper to let your insurance company simply settle out of court assuming a lawsuit even gets filed to begin with.

There are several different ways ISO can work - depending on the company attitude and court system.

When I worked for a company in North Carolina (my old company from previous years) from 96 to 98 we implemented ISO 9000 that was drafted by the VP of engineering - it was strong and useful. Audits were tough and had to be complied with.

In India the inspections and entire program were a joke - the ISO label meant Installment Sufficiently Offered or in other words the ISO label on the company stationery just meant the ISO bill was paid up to date.

It was important as many of our larger customers were in Europe where often it was a requirement to sell to a company.

I've worked on the positive side of this in food production

one customer dictated that we used certain quality systems as a requirement, management on all levels bought in fully, there was no choice

too much money at stake

a lot of what's happening in food safety goes back to the incident at Jack N the Box, where under cooked Hamburgers killed a few people.

as a response a system was implemented

HACCP

Hazard Analysis of Critical Control Points

which spread throughout the food industries, the movement was further accelerated by the demands of Homeland security after 911

it's trickling down to even small farmers, being required to keep records

the large retailers [& the government] are making it a pre requisite for their vendors

when management takes the short view, it may help the stock price today at the expense of the long term viability of the organization

The problem with many quality programs is that they emphasize quality improvement over quality maintenance. Any company worth its salt will already have at least a fair quality if they have had any quality program in place. I have seen new programs come into being whose purpose was to fix a couple problems which had slipped through the cracks in the old quality program. While they fixed those problems, some of them ignored the existing quality enough that the total quality of the company went down.

There is also often a misunderstanding of what the program is supposed to do. A not friendly memory of "Zero Defects" I had an officer in the military in the late 60s, who felt that zero defects meant you could not have a defect. We were required to report a four hour outage in a microwave system in the middle of a work day while we were waitng for a replacement part, (an emergency order placed three weeks earlier, which could not be classified as an emergency, since that would imply a defect) as a planned outage. This, of course, was on a microwave system which had actally been declared obsolete in the 40s. This, obviously, could have nothing to do with the outage.

How did I miss this one? I suppose the topic has run its course but I think several responses have beat all around the bush without quite hitting it. It seems to me that most programs like this are like the joke about the guy who keeps trying to put the square peg in the round hole. "Management Material!"

Quality control must be part of the design, not an afterthought. But most machine or process designers never look back to see if what they designed actually worked. Then the designer must experience the problems himself before he "gets it". Although, sometimes if he asks enough of the people that have to put up with the design, he might get a good description of what is wrong. Most machines or processes only address the obvious needs and the finer issues are frequently overlooked. But those finer issues can give you all kinds of trouble.

Top management often thinks that the latest program is going to contain that little bit of magic that generates unobtainium. Getting their hands dirty is the last thing they want to do. And force fitting a QC program onto a bad process naturally causes efforts to fizzle.

The real problem seems to be that there really isn't enough money (or time) to do it over. So, making a broken process work better by managing the details and creating extra paperwork is just as insane as doing the same old thing and expecting different results. I've often wondered how many miles a manager would drive on a flat tire. What ever the distance, he would be sure to find someone else to blame.

Quality control is not about filtering out the junk that a production line makes. It is about detecting faults in the process and getting the process right. Not every QC effort requires paperwork. Making sure that a blank is properly located in the press before the press action takes place is a visual process, but it probably took some paperwork to come up with a process that would help locate that blank.

Overly complex QC efforts will never fix a sloppy process. Recognizing a sloppy process is like admitting an embarrassing mistake. Fixing a sloppy process is like working a miracle. Sometimes it can be done, but it is never completely without cost.