Operation Improvement Inc.

“You can’t inspect quality into the product! Quality begins in the process.”

I’ll never forget the night a glass tabletop in our home suddenly exploded – shattering into an uncountable number of tiny pieces. It had not been struck, abused, or even touched. There was nothing on the tabletop, and the glass had been resting gently on several rubber supports for months, possibly years.

Why Spontaneous Explosion Occurs to Tempered Glass – LandGlass
(Why Spontaneous Glass Explosion Occurs)

Without any evidence of defects or non-conformities of any kind, this shattering event was likely born in the -process- which created it. But can product inspection tell us things about the temperature or pressure differentials when the glass tabletop was created? Most often, it cannot.

Perhaps there are exotic techniques that can extrapolate these facts; but once the product is formed, the opportunity to measure and to know is lost.

Remember that SPC is Statistical –Process– Control? Metrics of process are just as important, and sometimes more important than finished product dimensions, weights, colors, and tolerances.

A real-time product metric does have some ability to “look back” into the process and we can infer process consistency to an extent. Time series temperatures, processing speeds, and other measures of activity provide that direct look many operations want and need.

Whether it is food prep in the kitchen, pouring and curing concrete, or making tempered glass – process metrics tell an important part of the Quality story that product inspection alone cannot.

Many times, a team will make the case that they need “just one more person”, but when pressed for details – the exact role is poorly defined. So, next comes the attempt to be specific.

A committee is then formed to generate job requirements. Someone might start with a Word and Excel requirement and someone else will suggest that C# programming or a master’s degree would be nice. It’s resume poker. “See and Raise”.

Instead, back up and take a look at the business processes and match roles and skills to the value stream.

In environments where there is a progression of task complexity, create a career path that lets new associates make an early contribution without umpteen weeks of training, and then let them advance as they continue to learn the operation.

In every line of work, people strive to conceptualize, to mentally simplify work. We want to understand. We want reminders of how things work. We want to continue to learn and to improve. Diagrams, drawings and pictures are tools we all use for this very purpose.

There is more than one way to approach this, to visualize relationships between time, dependencies, roles inputs, actions, cost and results. Look at these four examples and ask yourself, what is the right tool for the job?

When do we need a flowchart approach with loops and branches?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Process_Model_and_Notation

When do we need a matrix of “as is” business silos on which to analyze some new or existing workflow?

Layering: A New Approach to Business Process Mapping – isixsigma.com

When is a Gantt chart and a critical path analysis required?

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/show-the-critical-path-of-your-project-in-project-ad6e3b08-7748-4231-afc4-a2046207fd86

When is the “front line worker” perspective (a dependency diagram and decision table) appropriate?

Operation Improvement Inc. » Every process has a product and a by-product.

What is the Goal? Who is the audience? How does the visualization really help you to visualize the process and its relationship to the product, any decisions and actions, and any relevant metrics and measures? Don’t make your analysis about paperwork. Make it about understanding and communicating.

You may have a favored approach, but you need to consider that everything is not a nail.