I just finished a relatively intense, short-term assignment with an auto parts manufacturer that was beginning the Six Sigma journey. I was asked to repair some of the damage done by a plant manager who had been let go because his behavior had caused several of his key subordinates to quit. I was also asked to help identify some of the key leverage points from which to launch the Six Sigma journey. Here’s what I found.
Customers were repeatedly changing their quality expectations because they did not understand their own customer’s expectations and were afraid to ask. They were demanding that my client send people to sort parts at their customer’s operation. My client naturally obliged, but this put additional strain on the relationships among management, production staff, and quality professionals. Production and quality blamed one another for the dilemma and management blamed them both.
It took very little investigation to realize that my client’s production inspectors were operating with inadequate training, unclear and changing standards, and an inspection environment not even close to that at the customer’s operations. Of course, 100% inspection should not have been needed anyway, but the production process, which included nearly 100% rework, was totally inadequate to produce good parts. On top of that, the incoming material was so bad that material flaws throughout the production process represented the daily expectation. How could things have gone so wrong?
Before I go there, let me say that, on the surface, my client seemed to be doing quite well. Customers seemed to be generally satisfied. Employees seemed to like working there. The use of technology seemed pretty good. The management team seemed bright and well-intentioned. The reason I spell this out is that my client sounds like a basket case, but my experience indicates that this company is not so different from other organizations.
So how could things have gone so wrong? First, I found that the damage the previous plant manager had done was profound. Production tools, equipment, and processes were so inadequate that it was nearly impossible for people to do their work. They had not complained because he would take comments about such things as personal attacks. In story after story, it became clear that a system of public humiliation and verbal abuse made production operators and supervisors afraid, and in fact fear reigned throughout the organization. The maintenance team was afraid to repair or maintain.
Of course, to blame all of this on one person over simplifies the problem. He simply exacerbated systems and beliefs that have been part of American organizations for more than 200 years.
The isolation among the four departments was easy to accentuate. When Frederick Winslow Taylor in the early 1900s convinced us that we needed to specialize in order to be efficient, he created the beginnings of separation across departments. It still exists today in too many organizations.
The fear existed, in part, because production workers were penalized for poor efficiency and excessive scrap. Monitoring both production and quality seems wise, except that the system was just another carrot-and-stick scheme, and the evidence is pretty clear about such schemes (Alfie Kohn, No Contest, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1986 and Alfie Kohn, Punished by Rewards, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1993.1). People will do whatever it takes to avoid the stick. In this case, the production operators would do whatever it took to make production, such as adjusting processes to increase both production and unreported material loss. That also reduced reported scrap. But sometimes the production efficiency bogies made scrap unavoidable. Then, workers would simply trash the scrap without reporting it. This phenomenon manifested itself as pretty good production efficiencies and scrap rates and a giant category in the income statement called material loss that no one seemed to be able to explain.
So what’s the point of this story? Start with the basics. As you begin to look for Six Sigma opportunities, talk to the people…all of them. Ask them where the opportunities lie. Then listen very carefully, for they will not necessarily be clear and direct, fearing that their answers may get them or someone else in trouble. They will also have trouble knowing where the opportunities lie because rework, waste, loss, and scrap have become standard operating practice in many organizations over the years. You may have to repeat this cycle of questioning and listening. Fear, mistrust, and acceptance of the norm are powerful forces.
Then look at the numbers with a critical eye. Loss, rework, and waste become part of the work standards, the special allowances, and the overhead. They are just an expected cost of doing business. Look to see that every bit of purchased material is converted into final product, that nothing is done that should have been done in a previous process, that inspection is nonexistent, and that nothing is done to provide the product or service that does not directly add value to the customer. Then, of course, look at the systems. The vast majority of the people are just doing the best they can.
David R. Schwinn, an independent consultant in Jackson, MI with experience in automotive-related industries and community quality training. Future columns will respond to user questions, challenges, and comments. Address these to Schwinn via PQ Systems, at support@pqsystems.com.
