Quality issues keep recurring – WHY?

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Quality Overview: Every day, many of us spend our time dealing with quality issues and trying to prevent them; basically, every few days we create or refine our regulatory documents in an attempt to fill in the gaps； Yet as the number of documents, systems, and processes increases and the quality management system becomes more complex, we find ourselves unable to avoid ongoing or recurring quality issues. Why is this? The delusions of quality managers: When quality problems arise, we always try to convince ourselves that it’s the quality that is at fault; we urgently need a team to step in and resolve the issue ； Coincidentally, we have a team dedicated to quality control, and so this team is required to address all quality issues; as a result, the problems become even more complex and confusing. It’s necessary to resolve them, but failing to do so thoroughly is unacceptable. Over time, quality managers came to think that quality professionals are like sanitary pads – if not properly managed, there will always be a few days each month when issues need to be dealt with ； Quality professionals are like sanitary pads: no one remembers them when everything is fine, but once there’s a problem, they’re the first ones who come to mind ； Quality professionals are like sanitary pads – they address immediate needs, but it’s hard to see any tangible results ； Quality control personnel are like sanitary pads: when there’s a problem, they’re put to use right away; once used, they’re thrown away as far away as possible. ...... Quality management is a history of blood and tears, a grave for those in the field of quality. Thus, quality managers harbor the hope: “I have a dream—to grow together with the enterprise, to receive ample support, and to be honored and appreciated.” What have we learned from dealing with “quality issues” at work? Long-serving employees have for years been struggling on the frontlines with issues related to both “quality” and “quantity”. They tend to question the progress of inspections right away, doubt the accuracy of others’ work, say that something isn’t within their responsibilities, claim they didn’t notice any problems, or argue that there’s no requirement for it in the rules... As a result, three things become their default behaviors: first, shirking responsibility; second, blaming quality control personnel; and third, continuing to shirk responsibility... Thus, as a group, we identify new problems and try to understand them. We attempt to make improvements by patching up loopholes in the system. Unfortunately, the results are hardly satisfactory. So, let’s think differently: could it be that our employees lack a \"quality awareness\"? Thus, we learned again how to establish or enhance a “quality mindset.” We looked around, and sure enough, another pioneer stepped forward and said, “Quality awareness begins with training and ends with training” – it all became clear then ； We have tried to use training as a means to enhance quality awareness, believing that we have found a way to address this issue. When problems arise, we say we need training ； The customer said, “Well, that makes sense.”” ； When facing the same problem, we say that training needs to be strengthened ； The customer said, “Well, it’s reasonable.”” ； When we continue to encounter the same problem, we say to further strengthen training ； The customer says, “Well, that makes sense.” When the same problem arises again, we say, “We’ve emphasized it so many times – why is it still wrong?”” ； The customer said, “Well, I’m not interested.” It wasn’t until we lost a client’s order due to their dissatisfaction that we realized businesses must make a profit while also prioritizing customer satisfaction. That’s when we learned about “customer orientation” – the first of the eight principles of quality management. Why don’t we have a “quality consciousness”? When there are serious problems with our products, one manager says it should be scrapped; ten managers say it probably should be scrapped; twenty managers say we need to give it some thought; fifty managers suggest trying to salvage it first; a hundred managers propose making concessions to let it pass. What would 200 managers do? ； How will employees who have undergone “quality awareness” training view this process? And how will they approach problems in their future work, or after becoming leaders? A friend has a subordinate who, while working in machining at a foreign-funded enterprise, was frequently named “Outstanding Employee” and “Model of Quality/Efficiency”. Later, when I took the job as his subordinate or worked in machining, I made continuous mistakes; I was even worse than the previous regular employees. Sometimes I would repeat the same errors despite having been reminded about them many times. There was a huge contrast between the past and the present, which was confusing; eventually it became clear that the employee was not adapted to the current environment or to the current leadership style. \"In foreign companies, documents were very detailed, while here many things are ambiguous.\" \"In foreign companies, there were mechanisms in place to correct errors, but here the manager simply gives verbal instructions.\" \"In foreign companies, any problem was taken seriously with no room for negotiation, but here efforts are made to meet deadlines and downplay serious issues.\" As this pattern spread from top to bottom, individual attitudes gradually evolved into a collective corporate mindset, which is a very concerning phenomenon. That’s why we learned about the \"leadership role\" – the second of the eight principles of quality management. We ask ourselves: what level are our leaders at when it comes to fostering a sense of quality among our employees? ； When we start blaming others for how things are, what are our leaders thinking? ； When we think that employees lack a sense of quality, what do we leaders do ourselves? Then, we thought again whether there might be a problem with communication Communication is a problem. Some influential person has stepped forward again, saying that \"communication is like a funnel.\" We often find that tasks assigned to others are not carried out properly; this is usually manifested by leaving things unfinished or being too embarrassed to speak up. The message that was intended to be conveyed ends up resulting in something completely different in the end. “In my mind, I give it a 100-point rating, but I only say it deserves 80 points out loud. Others hear it as a 60-point rating; those who truly understand it see it as merely a 40-point effort, while in reality, only 20% of the work has actually been done.” The most common example is during meetings: for the same meeting minutes, everyone believes that what they’re supposed to do differs from how others interpret them ； It leads to this: “You made me do it, but you didn’t tell me how to do it.” Things went wrong – what should I do? Thus, it follows that in addition to requirements, communication also necessitates providing guidance and process supervision. We have learned this “process approach” to communication—the fourth of the eight principles of quality management. Well, having learned the “process approach,” we can communicate effectively, set goals, and follow the procedures – so there shouldn’t be any major problems, right? As a result, we discovered a new story: We asked who would be willing to buy a phone with defects The reply was that there was no one. We asked who would be willing to jump out of a parachute that might have defects The reply was that no one had it. We asked who would be willing to destroy a defective BMW they had produced themselves The reply was that there was no one. We then asked who turns a blind eye to producing defective products, accepting defective products, and releasing defective products The responses varied: “There was no such request,” “I don’t know,” “No one informed me,” “I don’t understand”… There is a saying in Taiwanese companies: “Three Nos” – no production of defective products, no release of defective products, and no acceptance of defective products ； Big brands are displayed on the promotional walls of many companies, yet few people remember them after seeing them. Why? Because we have all forgotten that a company is people-oriented; employees should be involved in setting goals, encouraged to seek opportunities for improvement, and motivated to look for chances to gain knowledge and experience, so as to create conditions for their personal growth and development... Well, now we know about “full employee participation” – the third of the eight principles of quality management. Follow these steps: for each type of problem, we put in our best efforts and establish a standard management mechanism, continuously improving any flaws in that mechanism. This is what is meant by \"systematizing management and continuous improvement\" – the fifth and sixth of the eight principles of quality management ； But why do problems keep occurring? Why aren’t the measures we take having the desired effect? Where does the reason lie? Where does the reason lie? Once, we encountered a problem: a large number of defective products were found on the client’s end. We held meetings to identify the points of variation in the production process, and it seemed there were many such variations. We took measures for each one of them. Half a year passed, and the client told us that the defect rate had worsened. What went wrong? Why did the measures we took have an even worse effect? So we overturned our previous judgments, conducted X-ray and sectional inspections of the product as well as \"three-on-site\" checks (at the actual site, in the actual conditions, with the actual product) during the production process. Eventually, we found that the phenomena described by the customer did not match what we had understood; we had chosen the wrong areas for improvement. We then formulated new improvement plans based on the accurate information we now had, and resolved the issue immediately. Reality shows that some of us, when faced with problems, do not follow the \"three-eyes\" principle; instead, we always expect to be able to solve the issues that arise on the production floor simply by sitting in the office in front of a computer. The story tells us that the “three present conditions” are very important; this is “making decisions based on facts”—the seventh of the eight principles of quality management. About 20% of our problems stem from the materials or components provided by the suppliers; we were forced to accept them, which in turn led to subsequent issues and even customer complaints. We tried to have the suppliers take responsibility for this ； Then, we have fewer and fewer suppliers to choose from, and as a result the quality of the products does not improve much, because everyone is using products from the same few brand suppliers; costs remain high and quality standards do not rise, so people get used to complaining and eventually stop complaining ； Then one day, the customer came up and said, “I want to choose someone else’s device, someone else’s product.”” ； At this point, who will be eliminated by whom, and who is the supplier to whom? Without any profits, it seems that all previous efforts by the company have been in vain. Who is the supplier to whom? A quick search on the internet reveals dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of methods for evaluating and assessing suppliers used by various companies; by referring to these, it is easy to establish our own company’s rules and standards for evaluating and auditing suppliers. But as more and more problems arise, our demands also increase. Following conventional thinking, it seems that there are no qualified suppliers capable of providing perfectly good components ； But we need to produce and supply goods; if they’re needed urgently, what should we do? Grant permission to proceed, and then it returns to the previous cycle of \"customer dissatisfaction\". Someone stepped forward to speak out fairly: “Don’t compare us with large companies; they can afford such costs, while we can’t use equivalent amounts of money to find suppliers.” Then do we need to consider lowering the product standards? It’s unlikely; that way we would be eliminated even faster. What should I do? Let’s think differently and look for the problems within ourselves: what kind of supplier do we actually need, and for a specific product, what kind of supplier is required? Is it okay not to have ISO certification? ----Can some functions do without a quality manager? ----Is it possible to do without a technical department sometimes? ----Maybe it’s possible to do without testing facilities? ----It should work; does it matter if there’s no process control? ----It’ll do for now... why not give it a try? It seems that in many cases we can consider using our own efforts to help suppliers improve and meet our own needs. If said in this way, many suppliers will be happy – it’s a win-win situation, right? ； We’re also happy – high quality at a low price (low overall cost). The suppliers were elevated; we reaped the benefits; and our clients were satisfied. In the end, we realized that actually, we are the “suppliers” for everyone. Then we saw a new approach: “Mutual benefit with suppliers” – the eighth of the eight quality management principles. The living space for those focused on quality: As someone who is committed to quality in a company, one has to deal with frequent quality issues throughout the day, feeling anxious, angry, and helpless. The current situation is that we still need to understand, investigate, coordinate, and move things forward on a department-by-department basis ； Enduring the attitude of others who say \"I get annoyed just by seeing you\", and still helping them to improve, with resentment accumulating inside ； Because when things go well, it’s someone else’s credit; when things go wrong, it’s because the quality team didn’t do a good enough job. But we know that only by improving our company’s quality can we have a chance to survive. How to reduce quality issues? Can we improve quality and boost company profits by using these eight management rules, along with the principles of \"seeing things as they are,\" \"not doing three things,\" \"effective communication,\" and \"training\"? I’m not sure, because a good quality level should result in an effective increase in profits, and it’s not a simple matter. However, we identified three things that can provide us with insights: First, a certain Taiwanese-owned company has a career progression path for its employees that goes from \"employee\" to \"team leader\" to \"quality controller\" to \"technician\" to \"technical supervisor\" to \"quality manager\"... The company’s philosophy is that technical personnel must first be good quality control experts, capable of considering how to ensure quality control from the design stage onward. Secondly, Crosby specifically mentioned in “Reducing Quality Costs” that the status of quality professionals within the industry is unique. He must devoutly keep himself apart from business matters. A successful quality controller truly keeps themselves apart from quality control activities; they spend most of their time on matters that are not directly related to those managed by their subordinates. He was the main proponent and defender of the concept of \"defect prevention\" ； His responsibility is to strive to maintain standards in company management. When encouraging all managers to strive for a \"one-time success\" rather than making continual fixes, he must be positive and optimistic. So, how should he allocate his time? He should spend 30% of his time with the boss and working alongside them ； Spend 40% of the time working with managers from departments such as engineering, production, procurement, and finance to assist them in implementing the control measures necessary to ensure \"defect prevention\" ； The remaining 30% was spent by her with his subordinates. Therefore, he must budget his time accurately and seize every opportunity for success ； It is also necessary to be sure that his subordinates can manage their schedules well, receive training and guidance, without having to handle these specific tasks personally. As mentioned above, to reduce quality issues, those in charge of quality should not focus solely on their own tasks; instead, they need to assist other departments in identifying problems related to defect prevention, rather than acting merely as someone who takes the blame for others’ mistakes. Thirdly, I had the privilege of attending a quality management meeting at a Japanese company. When addressing issues, they would first analyze themselves to figure out where their mistakes lay, with everyone taking turns doing so... In contrast, when I analyze myself at quality meetings within my own company, it’s usually my fault that causes the problems. Thus, the changing status of quality professionals in the minds of employees and leaders determines the direction in which a company’s quality level develops. We know that quality management has nine slogans; where are we at today, and where will we be tomorrow? 9-sentence slogan: 1. Shout the slogan ； 2. Listen to feedback ； 3. By inspection ； 4. Focus on the basics ； 5. Pipe site ； 6. Focus on the key points ； 7. Emphasize prevention ； 8. According to standards ； 9. Seek perfection. Appendix: The “Three No’s Principles” and “Nine Taboos” in Quality Management. How the “Three No’s Principles” of quality management can ensure the quality of products manufactured and reduce the rate of defective products has always been an important goal in quality management, as well as an issue that must be addressed in quality management activities.