Cost of Quality: Is It Worth It?

Have you ever sat down as a quality minded engineer and honestly thought about all the different costs that go into delivering a high quality product to your customer? If you have then you are aware that quality is much more than just visually inspecting a part every thirty pieces, once per day or every changeover. You are aware that in order to guarantee high quality you need to consider preventative costs, appraisal costs, internal failure costs, external failure costs and intangible costs and believe it or not these costs all add up. They can even add up so much that your costs required to produce a high quality product to your consumer may outweigh the products overall value or your profit. So now consider are all these precautionary measures and costs necessary to produce a product that will fly off the shelves and into the arms of every consumer on the market. Its every salesman's dream and you have that capability. So now ask yourself is it still worth the all the costs even at a minimum gain? In my opinion the answer is simple and is a big fat YES!!!!

Think of it in the eyes of the consumer. If you plan on spending a decent amount of money on a single product for example lets say $100 or more don't you assume that what you are paying for is worth the money, wait in line, risk of consumption and also effort or time. Is it not a product that you must have based on reviews and technology and other innovative aspects  If so then why would you want to purchase a product at such a high cost and expect it to be thrown away in a weeks time or less? The answer is simple you wouldn't. So as an engineer why would you not consider these quality costs necessary to keep your customers happy and coming back to by the next latest greatest product in every color, shape and size you can place on the market.

In conclusion my opinion in the worth of quality costs is great even if it costs you more on the front end. Overall I believe that it is much more important to gain a great relationship with your customer for your product or service then to insult them by supplying lackluster items for the use, consumption and a quick disposal.

-SW

The President and PDSA

What if the presidential candidates used PDSA? Would things be any better because of it? We all know that PDSA is a great way of solving problems, but would it work on the economy, or other problems our country has? It seems to me that it would be worth a shot. Especially since during the process there is a lot of planning that would be involved in making the right decision. It has got me thinking because of all the ads on TV for the election, and because of all the debates going on.

We all know how the rest of the schedule goes in PDSA, but I was just curious as to how it might work in that sort of atmosphere, or if they have their own version of it, or what. It works in manufacturing and industry, so why wouldn't it work in politics? I think if they took the right approach, it might be able to help out. I'm not saying they are going to balance the national debt, but maybe start out with something small to see if it works and move up from there.
-OE

Problem Solver

               Every day, a person is most likely to run into some sort of problem.  No matter how big or small, problems hurt a process or workplace. How well these problems are handled is what separates a good company from a bad company.  When solving a problem, it is very important to make sure that the problem does not occur again.

               Problems are not always recognized until it is too late or there is data that brings it into light. During my internship, I encountered production problems every hour. Sometimes problems arose from product defects or manufacturing issues. For the most part, the problems that I came across were single occurrences and could not be prevented. However, sometimes problems were recurring. For instance, I noticed that sometimes a hard copy of the bill of materials (BoM) was needed. The software that was used took the entire BoM from the database and exported all information to an excel document. The engineer would then remove all of the unnecessary information and give the BoM to production. This process took anywhere from 15-30 minutes and occurred several times a shift. After a week or so, I realized that this was a problem that could be fixed. To resolve the issue, I created a program that took the desired data and reformatted it into neat and standard template. When I started to use the program, the BoM process took under a minute and was so simple that production could do it without an engineer.

               In hindsight, I can see that I loosely followed the Plan Do Study Act(PDSA) cycle after I faced this problem. I did not necessarily base my solution off of the cycle, but I did see the relation and importance. Sometimes smaller problems do not need to follow each step of a problem-solving process.

-MD

Problem Solving and the Deming Cycle

Problem solving is a huge part of what engineers do on a day to day basis in industry.  Factories have highly innovative processes to produce their product, but sometimes the processes lead to product failure.  Engineers have to implement a change in the process in order to fix the product defects.  Sometimes it is clear what the issues at hand are and how to fix them, other times it is very difficult to pin point the process issues. Regardless of difficulty, everyone is relying on the engineers to solve the problem and get them producing quality parts again. 

Dr. Deming did industrial engineers a huge favor by developing his Plan Do Study Act cycle (PDSA).  The PDSA cycle is a step by step process to help discover the root cause of the problem.  The Planning phase is to recognize there is a problem present, form an improvement team, develop performance measures, and clearly define the problem.  This step allows you to prepare for the problem solving process and begin to find out the root cause of the problem.  The Do part of the cycle is when we identify, choose, and implement our solution.  After the solution is implemented, we dive into the Study phase and monitor the process.  An important part of this cycle is to have a way to measure during the study phase after implementing the solution.  If we can quantify it, we can compare numbers and see the improvement.  The last part of the cycle is Act, which means what are we going to do now to continuously improve the process.  After implementing a solution, did it fix the problem completely and is there room for more improvement?  If the answer is yes than the cycle starts over again, if its no than the PDSA is over and the problem is fixed. 

The Deming cycle is a great tool for finding the root cause of the problem and implementing a solution in a fast, organized manner.  After all Industrial engineers strive to be efficient in all aspects and the Deming cycle keeps everyone on task when problem solving.

-Dan Westerheide

Plan Do Check Act to Solve Problems

It seems to me that the older I get the projects or problems that I do and solve it always seems that with  these projects or problems people just want to get it done as fast as possible. Through doing this it seems that people just want to go do things and try to do things fast then check them later. Especially students try to do things as fast as possible in order to go on to another task and worry about any of the effects at a later time. Through using something like plan do check act it allows for something that allows solving problems and not only solving it but continuously improving.  

            The first part of plan do check act is planning. This planning part identifies what the problem is exactly. Through this step it allows analysis of what is going on now and trying to find a real reason for why there is importance to a project. This is important without a clear understanding of what the problem is or why you are doing this project there is no reason for the project. Through this step it is important to define the problem in a clear way possibly rephrases the problem. This is also the information stage and important to gather information about what is going on and starting to observe the problem and gathering information. Which happens sometimes in groups I've been a part of but not necessarily all the time when I have a big project it is more focused about the end result and not much planning goes into the project. In the groups we have done this step we have had great success on those projects. Also making sure that there are the right people on my team too and also trying to get people who could help my team be successful too.

            Second is the do part. This part is implementing the plan that has happened after the research has been completed and objectives have been set up. This part is important to set objectives that are manageable and obtainable by the end of the project. This part defines the necessary changes that need to be made, and defines the action plan. It also makes the necessary ways to monitor the results. In one of the best groups I’ve had we had great ways to measure our results and ways to continuously improve on what we have done. After that comes check where you verify the results of the do phase and make sure that things meet the measures that are trying to be obtained. This part allows the ability to see if all objectives have been met. It is also important to see where you were against where you are currently and always not being satisfied. The act stage allows for review. The act stage allows for new ideas to try to solve problems and continuous improvement. I know that in most companies that it is important to keep improving and keep quality as an important part of everything.

            Through PDCA allows for planning that most people try to skip because it seems to take too long, but it is essential to plan because it is cheaper to mess up and fix it then have multiple parts mess up and be sent back for repair. The doing part allows one to prioritize solutions and find ways to monitor results and strategies to implement change. The study stage allows the ability to evaluate your solution and make sure all objectives and the plan works. Finally act allows for continuous improvement review new ideas and set new standards to improve. I find that through using this process I feel it not only delivers the best results and keeps getting results.  

MG

8D Methodology

     Over the past few weeks our class has been meeting in groups to work on the KU dining hall project.  My team is focusing in on efficiency.  Something that I have been doing in the group is helping complete the 8D methodology of problem solving for the project.  This is an in-depth tool for setting up the problem and tackling it.  We have currently completed the D0 and D1 steps of the methodology.  This system really makes sure that you do the pre-solving work, and don’t just jump in with ill-advised answers.

  

     The thing that has taken us the longest has been deciding what we want our goals and objectives to be.  The goals are meant to be a broad overview of what you want to accomplish.  The objectives on the other hand are meant to be metrics of whether or not you met your goals.  Without objectives, it would be impossible to know if your goals were completed, as many times words like “help” and “make better” are used in goal statements.  The objectives give desired 10% changes or x amount of improvement.

     Another part of the early 8D setup is gathering the correct people to join your problem-solving team.  Part of the D1 stage is listing the team members and also what relevant skills they bring to the table.  Configuring a diverse yet educated team will provide the best insight for solving the problem.

-CM

Mistakes in Problem Solving

Problem solving happens in everyday life. When it comes to problem solving in business the problems become much more difficult. Having taken 4 classes focusing on quality that requires problem solving and how to problem solve. I wanted to focus on some of the mistakes that teams make while in the process of problem solving from my experience and an article I have read about general problems of problem solving.  I am going to focus on three general mistakes that teams make the lack of GEMBA walks, Root Cause analysis, and Performance Measure.

Many teams when problem solving, hear the problem from the person if affects and does not actually experience the problem. GEMBA, are walks that problem solvers take to see the problem. I have had experience where three of us are in a room trying to solve the problem with hypothetical guesses. A team that guesses about the process they have not seen normally doesn't work. Take the team to go see the current situation and utilize the information and facts that you collect from the GEMBA walk and talking to the workers and the customers.

Root Cause is a key component of problem solving. All teams do a version of a root cause analysis however, there needs to be a strong leader during this step to keep the team focused on what the plausible causes could be while brainstorming and finding the root cause. The problem that often occurs when trying to find the root cause are teams often get focused on the results or open up a new generic problem that is not focused on the problem at hand. It is important for the leader of the team to keep the team focused, break down every problem and harness the team to stay with in the scope of the problem.

Finally, the other mistake that I have personally witnessed is lack of performance measuring.  The burden of measuring performance with outdated software tends to be a nuisance in businesses however that is not a problem nor excuse not to measure performance. There should be two questions that are asked before you begin problem solving. 1 What should be happening? 2 What is actually happening? And the next step is to quantify those questions with actual data. It is not a matter of having computer software to tell you the data but rather having the right people to go out and find and collect the correct data. If there is not a significant measurable gab then a problem solving report such as a A3 will be extremely difficult to measure. You will not know the countermeasures are effectively addressing the root cause.

 CKD

http://thetoyotagal.blogspot.com/2010/05/common-mistakes-when-we-are-problem.html