Having been on more than one side of this since I have been a production welder, a repair welder, a shop owner, and now an inspector I hope I see the positive parts of the positions and comments that all three of you are making. And there definitely needs to be a compassion factor for employers dealing with personnel.
It will always be a battle between the bean counters, QC, and management trying to come up with the BEST system to ACCURATELY monitor production, reward good work, correct bad work, offer incentive to promote desire to produce more good work without being overly punitive for bad work so that workers will not see additional training as belittling but as a positive direction for their future as well as the company, while all the while doing the absolute best possible job to promote the company's quality standards to impress future and repeat customers.
I don't think we will ever find a PERFECT reporting system. And I agree that overall it will probably not be an equally applied system. But companies do need some method of figuring time spent on repairs vs production and then see how further training can reduce repairs and increase production which will obviously increase profits.
The main point of application will always be different between customer, management, workers, and QC. Each is looking for something different. Each must be able to keep their own personal responsibilities separated from the area of responsibility of others. It is not QC's job to fire, only to state problem areas so the customer gets a high quality job. Then management must decide how to deal with the problem areas. Hopefully management will not seeing firing as the only means to correct a problem. But that is their area of responsibility.
I appreciate Shane's examples of comparison between percentages of rejections. Someone who has been on more than one side of the issue can see the various aspects of the problem. Those who have always been only in management, only in accounting, only in QC, and even those who have always been ONLY (??) in production have tunnel vision when it comes to truly dealing with the problem to correct it.
A very good discussion indeed. Helps all of us to keep perspective.
Have a Great Day, Brent
I will readly admit, my knowledge of Six Sigma can fit on the head of a pin with space left over, but my limited experience with these relatively new quality assurance systems (and some not so new such as ISO though I do not know the actual history and time frames to be sure) is that they all seem to have been generated by people who are involved in 'widgid world' and do not lend themselves very well to other industry types, despite their protestations to the contrary. You can make them fit but it isn't easy. Pipoe fab, job shops, etc. are not what the inventors of these systems had in mind.
I wouldn't disagree with your post, however I think the idea of being honest with the customer for ASME/API/AWS, etc., applications would require an overlaying of these standards way of calcualting in which case, as I stated in the previous post, you can set up a system that works for you but for 'apples to apples' still must deal with ASME world, as an example, or 'honest for the customer' gets a little fuzzy.
Customer:
"What is your current reject rate?"
Fabricator:
"Well, to be totally honest, using ASME standard industry practice for pipe fabrication it is 7.5%. But before you decide this may be too high keep in mind that utilizing our newly developed Wazoo Six Sigma Kung Fu Feng Shui Fuzzy Logic Phases of the Moon calculation its actually only 2.3%. We have every confidence the 2.3% is more valid."
Customer:
In developing your new system did you have a preconceived intuition that the resulting number would be lower?"
Fabricator:
"What?"