” We strive to decide our own fate. We act with self-reliance, trusting in our own abilities. We accept accountability for our supervision and for maintaining and improving the skills that help us to produce added value.”- Excerpt from Toyota Motor Corporation’s internal document, “The Toyota Way”
Wrong-Headed Thinking
The opening quote catches the values and ideals of Taiichi Ohno, one of the inventors of the Toyota Way pushed with converting Toyota into the world-class manufacturing company
that it is today. Some of my columns may sound like a broken record to my readers regarding best practices/Lean as a “be-all, end all” to every problem a company can have. It may surprise you that I firmly disagree with that; Lean certainly has limitations and does not play particularly well in high-mix, low-volume
( HMLV) proceedings like PCB manufacturing. That being said, what I do believe is that there are very few problems that can not be helped with a thoughtful, selective application of best practice tools appropriate to the situation. Unfortunately, one of the first reactions to a process problem with many companies, especially in a very complicated operation like PCB manufacturing, is to throw more inspectors at it. This knee-jerk reaction has a triple impact on profits:
1. Inspection by definition is a non value- add reactive process.
2. Inspection doesn’t address the root cause of the issue and assures it will certainly resurface at some point.
3. Inspection is not effective.
that it is today. Some of my columns may sound like a broken record to my readers regarding best practices/Lean as a “be-all, end all” to every problem a company can have. It may surprise you that I firmly disagree with that; Lean certainly has limitations and does not play particularly well in high-mix, low-volume
( HMLV) proceedings like PCB manufacturing. That being said, what I do believe is that there are very few problems that can not be helped with a thoughtful, selective application of best practice tools appropriate to the situation. Unfortunately, one of the first reactions to a process problem with many companies, especially in a very complicated operation like PCB manufacturing, is to throw more inspectors at it. This knee-jerk reaction has a triple impact on profits:
1. Inspection by definition is a non value- add reactive process.
2. Inspection doesn’t address the root cause of the issue and assures it will certainly resurface at some point.
3. Inspection is not effective.
Inspection Is Evil
An intelligent man once shared, “Inspection is evil.” Actually it was me, and I didn’t say it just once, I say it every chance I get. Inspection is a non value-add activity and companies tend to use it to hide many sins. Typically, leaders of American industry have had a one-size-fits-all solution to just about any manufacturing issue they encounter: they throw more inspectors at it. Client returns grow and/or internal yields reduce: “Let’s hire more inspectors to make sure our customers do not receive the results of our inefficient process.” Whether you find bad parts internally or ship them, the client is paying for your process inefficiencies either by flaws, or the cost of your inspection, repair and rework. I am here to tell you that this approach simply does not work, and I will verify it to you shortly.
From a functional standpoint, there are three kinds of inspection:
1. Judgment/standard inspection
2. Informative inspection
3. Point of origin inspection
1. Judgment/standard inspection
2. Informative inspection
3. Point of origin inspection
The first two are widely used and regarded traditional methods of quality control. Pointof-origin inspection is the only way that actually eliminates defects by putting the responsibility
for quality back at the manufacturing source, which is quality guarantee.
for quality back at the manufacturing source, which is quality guarantee.
Believe me now? So is inspection a great approach of assuring quality and profit? I think not. Regarding the multiple negative impact of excessive inspection, I would argue that inspection is one of the more hidden destroyers of revenues in any business. Inspection is evil.
What is the Solution ?
That is easy: applying the appropriate best technique tools explained in detail in my previous columns to drive to true root cause to completely get rid of profit-sucking process issues from your operation.