Quality Control

[Russ_G]

Our shop is in desperate need of a new approach to QC. What is your shops approach to QC, do you have a dedicated QC person and what steps do you take to ensure quality throughout a job start to finish.

 

[gordo]

Our shop is in desperate need of a new approach to QC. What is your shops approach to QC, do you have a dedicated QC person and what steps do you take to ensure quality throughout a job start to finish.

The first step is defining what you mean by "quality." So, how do you define "quality?"

best, gordon p

 

[dabob]

Quality Control ultimately ends up being the responsibility of the person doing the work . . . I don't care how much QC paperwork you introduce if the person actually doing the work either doesn't know what quality is or doesn't care then that is truly your issue. My personal feeling about all the ISO standards is that is just is a way to point the finger at the person that made the mistake . . . which might make them do a better job since it does show where the screw up happened . . . in my shop we know who screwed up and dont need a Quality Control program . . . its more like do it right or do it somewhere else.

 

[gordo]

Quality Control ultimately ends up being the responsibility of the person doing the work . . . I don't care how much QC paperwork you introduce if the person actually doing the work either doesn't know what quality is or doesn't care then that is truly your issue. My personal feeling about all the ISO standards is that is just is a way to point the finger at the person that made the mistake . . . which might make them do a better job since it does show where the screw up happened . . . in my shop we know who screwed up and dont need a Quality Control program . . . its more like do it right or do it somewhere else.

That's certainly one approach - but it may not be optimal.

Here are a few little exercises that I used to give graphic design students to spark discussion and thinking on these kinds of questions.

The task/work is to draw this barn in Illustrator. The wall is 1" high. The width is 2".

A good class would come up with about 17 ways to draw the barn in Illustrator.
Some questions that this exercise might prompt:
1) Was there only one right way and 16 wrong ways to do the work?
2) Were all 17 ways the right way?
3) Were some ways more right than others?
4) How do you determine whether the drawing of barn is correct or not?
5) Was the information provided sufficient to complete the task?
6) Was the information provided unambiguous?
7) Did the information provided enable you to determine the correctness of the work that you did?

Next task:

The task/work is to draw this same barn in Illustrator. But this time each student would only be permitted to draw one element of the graphic and would then have to pass it on to the next student would would be tasked with drawing only one element and then passing it on etc.

Some questions that this exercise might prompt:
1) Is it possible that each part of the barn be drawn correctly - but the final barn be incorrectly drawn?
2) How does the work done by some one upstream from you affect your ability to do your work correctly?
3) How many people down the the barn drawing production chain are affected by the work done previously?
4) Is the drawing of the barn done more or less correctly if there is a meeting of the students to discuss the barn drawing project prior to starting the actual work.?
5) Is the drawing of the barn done more or less correctly if each student is allowed to speak about their part of the drawing before passing it on to the next student in the production chain.

My point is that quality control is much more than just a way to point the finger at the person that makes a mistake.

best, gordon p

 

[rich apollo]

Fascinating exercise, Gordo.

I'm working on a similar initiative in my shop - putting together a QC plan. The thing that has become very clear to me is the need to agree upon the metrics to be used and their hierarchy. In other words, you have to decide as a company what is important. 10 cents saved on paper can lead to a dollar spent to maintain color on press - unless color isn't important. I'm not trying to be snide. Color may not be the primary focus for a company. It may be turn time, or dollars saved, or finishing. Maybe the less expensive paper folds better.

As a group, you have to decide what qualities merit control.

 

[gordo]

Yes, that's exactly why you have to start with defining what is meant by "quality"
The definition defines the goal(s). The goals define the tasks. The tasks define the metrics. etc. etc.
Turning fuzzy meaningless words like quality, better, efficient, faster, etc. into clear, unambiguous, measurable, actionable terms is key to a "quality" program.

"If you don't know where you're going - any road will take you there."

Quality begins by eliminating the word "quality."


best, gordon p

 

[Deleted member 16349]

fuzzy meaningless words like quality, better, efficient, faster, etc.

best, gordon p

Gordon,

I think managers like those fuzzy words for the very reason that they are not clear. Somehow, consciously or unconsciously, they do not want to be measured by numbers they have limited ability to change.

How many companies try to put improvement plans in place and they insist that first they want to get data for how the operation runs at that time. That is fine but often it is used to kill time to avoid the point where they have to actually make an improvement.

How many companies use the number of customer complaints as a major metric for quality? It is related to some extent but provides little help in changing what needs to be changed.

It is just human nature. Most people know what does not work well but they don't want to highlite it because they don't think they can do anything about it. Or they say that that is just how the process works and they tell others that also so they don't have to make an effort to think or try different things.

Mentally one should not be happy unless one has zero waste. Of course that is not possible but the mental pressure should be always on to make improvements. Accepting a situation as being normal is the path to bankruptcy.

 

[M. R. Horton]

Great post Russ_G!
Great replies Gordon!

"If you can measure it, you can improve it" is a great quote, but "measure" needs to be defined and so does "improve" in order for it to prove out in your circumstance.

 

[Alois Senefelder]

QC control

QC control

Gentlemen,

I give you my cogitation on QC



Regards, Alois

A PDF

 

[Deleted member 16349]

Gentlemen,

I give you my cogitation on QC



Regards, Alois

A PDF

Alois,

Are those guys still in business?

 

[chevalier]

QC has more to do with whether the operator gives a $#!t be it estimating, order entry, prepress, press, post-press, shipping/receiving or delivery than it has to do with how many procedures or ISO certifications you have. We have a full-time QC person who's real role is to do fancy write-ups of the problem, who dun it, when it wer dun, and what we should due to keep it from happening again. We constantly have clients QC people from our clients coming through to verify that we are up to their specs (read: generally ridiculous and ludicrous demands). They generally walk around frowning the whole time throw around a bunch of FUD and catchy terms and then tell us we are doing something wrong (there is always SOMETHING wrong). They generally know absolutely nothing about the actual manufacturing process they are judging and just create more paperwork and procedures that do not prevent mistakes but only annoy the workforce. Sometimes I wish the post-office would start hiring again so these people could have their dream jobs.

Now that I got that off my chest...
If you want to resolve and get QC. I suggest you set standards, hold your operators to these standards and give them incentives to meet or exceed these standards (bonuses, free lunches, extra paid half-days off when its slow, etc.). Do this instead of writing people up for every mistake, having endless pointless meetings and creating such a level of paperwork that would make a soviet bureaucrat blush. You will have happy customers and a happy workforce. That said, you must track mistakes and if find the same mistakes repeating pursue write-ups and if necessary fire the offender(s) rather than make excuses. There are plenty of good people who want to do a good job looking for work out there.

Customers are always going to demand acronym soup, appease them and gain what you can from the experience but don't get caught up in the silly game!

 

[gordo]

@ Chevalier - WOW. Is your business in a warm dry country? If so, I'd like to send you my resumé - it looks like your QC person isn't a quality person.

A QC program for a print company is a heck of a lot more involved than simply setting standards and holding employees to those standards - let alone rewarding them for "exceeding" them (which can prove disastrous).

I hope that you actually don't mean it when you wrote: "you must track mistakes and if find the same mistakes repeating pursue write-ups and if necessary fire the offender(s) rather than make excuses."

From a print production business perspective, one of the duties of a QC manager (or that function fulfilled by the production team) is to learn the cause when mistakes happen since it can reveal what needs to be improved in the production process.

The three most common ways people make errors are:

Perception-based. These occur when there is incomplete or ambiguous information. For example: “We need a quote on a four-page folder” could mean many different things. Perception-based errors can be avoided by providing clear and distinctive instructions, standardizing instructions, and avoiding assumptions intended to fill in missing information.

Decision-based. These occur because of stress, pre-existing biases, assumptions, and over-confidence. This type of error can be avoided by using checklists, decision trees, and go-no-go flow charts.

Knowledge-based. These occur due to a lack of knowledge, information, and/or poor communication. These can be avoided by standardizing terms and operational conventions as well as through formal training.

Determining, documenting and analyzing the source of mistakes helps clarify whether issues are random, intermittent, systemic, or trending in some way. This clarification informs your decisions. The goal being, not to make the same mistake twice, avoid losing valued employees, and reduce production costs, etc.

But again, this starts with defining what is meant by "quality" for your particular situation - which the OP has not stated. So far the comments and suggestions seem to assume that "quality" is related to making mistakes. That is not necessarily true and is not the sole job of a QC manager or the people involved in implementing a QC program.

best, gordon p

 

[chevalier]

I'm one of those commie-healthcare hating gun crazed lunatics just below your great white North (a joke). I don't want anyone to think I'm some bitter old crank. I'm actually the polar opposite of it (and a millennial). I just choose to look at this from a more realistic bottom-up perspective. The perspective I am giving is from multiple operations of varying sizes.

Defining quality is pretty simple to define: what the customer expects and demands the product to be at a minimum acceptable level. You could get all lofty and esoteric with this but it would still boil down to this.

In the plants have been in (only one of which has had a full-time QC person) I would bet at least 85% of the mistakes (quality related issues) are due to pure negligence of an operator. By that I mean the operator knew there was a problem and chose to either ignore it or wasn't paying attention. I recognize your four point retort from my university days. I think this is mostly a nice way to gloss over the ugliness of saying that many, many people are lazy, don't care about the quality of their work and just want a paycheck. I've seen thousands of dollars spent on training go down the drain because there is no accountability. I've seen hundreds of thousands of dollars of fancy gizmos and equipment sit unused despite constant training and resources available and even though it would make the operators job easier. I've seen operators make repeat mistakes in the tens of thousands of dollars only to be written up, sent home then put right back in the same position to make the same mistakes. The bottom line is accountability. No matter how much QC paperwork, meetings, checks, write-ups, training, and touchy-feely communications you come up with if you do not hold your personnel accountable you will not have a quality controlled environment. You reward those who perform giving the others the nudge to perform. If they won't perform you find somebody who will.

I really do hate to sound so nasty but to deny this stuff is to stick your head in the sand like an ostrich. I had a near philosophical melt-down a few years ago when I first finally realized most people have near zero passion towards their work.

 

[gordo]

Hmmm...sounds like you don't want to see my resumé. Or maybe you don't live in a warm dry part of the country. Bummer.

I hear what you're saying and in some respects I agree.

That being said...the OP has not defined what they mean by quality. Your definition may suit you but not them. So by your saying: "[quality is] what the customer expects and demands the product to be at a minimum acceptable level" one could start to define objectives and metrics. For example: What does "minimum acceptable level" mean? Can it be defined? Does this come from the customer or from in plant? Can numbers be used to express it or is it subjective? If it's subjective is there a way to objectify or quantify it, etc, etc.

That's not lofty or esoteric. That's just simple, pragmatic "plan your work, work your plan" thinking.

Yes some people are lazy, some couldn't care less (American translation: some could care less) and yes accountability is important. But that accountability starts with management. After all, they hired those lazy couldn't care less people in the first place. I don't think it's about (or that I'm) sticking my head in the sand.

The key is that, if QC is important and you want it to succeed, then you need to go about it in a systematic, measured way. Otherwise you will not reach your goal or be able to cost justify any changes you make to the process - including the expensive process of firing and hiring a replacement.


best, gordon p

 

[Al Ferrari]

"The bottom line is accountability."

What if we were to make you accountable for the quality of the writing in your post? Better yet, why haven't you taken it more seriously yourself? There are serious errors in your post even after your 1:58 PM edit. Why is this of lesser importance than the paying work you do in the industry? Is it that you have near zero passion towards your writing?

It is easy to say "that many, many people are lazy, [and] don't care about the quality of their work". But how do we begin to change that condition?

Al

 

[chevalier]

@Gordo
-Probably couldn't afford you. I'm somewhat informed of your background
-Agree'd about measure systemic measures leading to continuous improvement
-Also agree'd on not knowing the OP's intent

@Al
-I take this seriously otherwise I wouldn't have bothered to post. I re-read the thing multiple times before hitting submit and after. Perhaps I was taken too much by passion to speak perfectly and concisely?
-Your question as to how to solve the condition? With utmost honesty I really wish I had an answer.

 

[M. R. Horton]

One of the owners of the company I work for often says "business is a conversation". Conversations are two way communication, and they take time, and they happen often in a healthy business relationship. I think we could apply that here in terms of the pursuit of quality.

I think we converse with our clients to determine what they would like us to do, what we would like them to do, and then we determine if we can do what they want and if they can do what we want. I think that "quality" is defined (goals are set) by this conversation, then "quality" is maintained by continued conversations throughout the process with each "provider/consumer/peer" relationship in the process. In every relationship there should be a growing understanding and grace if it is to be a quality relationship. Without that I think we see business conversations as hopeless and draining and our processes and relationships reflect that.

I like to think I have 29 years of experience, not 29 years of the same experience.
Thanks Gordon, and others, for sharing some of your experience, it helps me do the former and not the latter.

 

[Al Ferrari]

Very well put indeed! 5 Stars.

Al

 

[Russ_G]

QC has more to do with whether the operator gives a $#!t be it estimating, order entry, prepress, press, post-press, shipping/receiving or delivery than it has to do with how many procedures or ISO certifications you have. We have a full-time QC person who's real role is to do fancy write-ups of the problem, who dun it, when it wer dun, and what we should due to keep it from happening again. We constantly have clients QC people from our clients coming through to verify that we are up to their specs (read: generally ridiculous and ludicrous demands). They generally walk around frowning the whole time throw around a bunch of FUD and catchy terms and then tell us we are doing something wrong (there is always SOMETHING wrong). They generally know absolutely nothing about the actual manufacturing process they are judging and just create more paperwork and procedures that do not prevent mistakes but only annoy the workforce. Sometimes I wish the post-office would start hiring again so these people could have their dream jobs.

Now that I got that off my chest...
If you want to resolve and get QC. I suggest you set standards, hold your operators to these standards and give them incentives to meet or exceed these standards (bonuses, free lunches, extra paid half-days off when its slow, etc.). Do this instead of writing people up for every mistake, having endless pointless meetings and creating such a level of paperwork that would make a soviet bureaucrat blush. You will have happy customers and a happy workforce. That said, you must track mistakes and if find the same mistakes repeating pursue write-ups and if necessary fire the offender(s) rather than make excuses. There are plenty of good people who want to do a good job looking for work out there.

Customers are always going to demand acronym soup, appease them and gain what you can from the experience but don't get caught up in the silly game!

Wow, I think we work in the same shop. I think the part about incentives makes a lot of sense, we have been going the other way exactly as you have described. Thanks for the input.

 

[TigerPress]

Our shop is in desperate need of a new approach to QC. What is your shops approach to QC, do you have a dedicated QC person and what steps do you take to ensure quality throughout a job start to finish.

Wow - That little question generated a lot of opinions.

We are a recently certified ISO 9001 printer. I'll share what I have used in prepress. It's not perfect but I think we have improved.

1. The worse person to try and find a mistake is the person who made it. Always have a second operator check the work. In our case, this is the prepress manager or simply another operator.

2. Even after doing prepress for 25 years, I still occasionally forget something. We use a checklist on every job ticket to make sure each step gets done on every job.

3. It is important to make employee responsible for their own mistakes. We use a written problem report when a serious issue occurs. The root cause is investigated and the record goes in the employees file to be reviewed at their next evaluation.

Hope this helps. ...Wayne