QUALITY BASICS

Stop Depending
On Inspection
by Darin J. Craig

T
oday’s manufacturers are faced with a
rapidly changing landscape. Product and
service improvement is not only desirable
but it is necessary for survival. If manufacturers
want to compete on a global scale, they must find a
different way of doing business. “Better, cheaper
and faster” becomes their mantra.
Common sense shows us it simply costs too
much to build products, inspect them and remove
the defective ones, only to rebuild them. We all

In 50 Words
Or Less
• All companies strive for better, cheaper and
faster production.

• Transitioning from an inspection based quality

system to a prevention based quality system
makes all employees responsible for quality
and, ultimately, eliminates the need for
inspection.
know it’s cheaper to build a product correctly to
begin with, but we run into trouble when we try
to make the transition from an inspection oriented
system to something better, cheaper and faster.
We also all know what this new system is not:
It’s not calling the same old thing by a new name,
nor is it simply reducing the number of inspectors.

QUALITY PROGRESS I JULY 2004 I 39

QUALITY BASICS
But what is it, exactly? How does it look when it’s
done? Most importantly, how do we get there from
here?
Current State
In many companies, manufacturing and quality
take on the roles of producer and police officer,
respectively. Manufacturing tries to produce as
many good units as possible, with “good” being
largely defined as what quality will accept. Quality,
on the other hand, is driven to keep all defects or
potential defects out of the product stream.
This difference often pits the two against each
other in a head-to-head competition where the
responsibility for product quality lies with the
quality department: “If quality assurance (QA)
does not reject it, it must be good.” As long as the
responsibility for quality is seen as someone else’s,
the transition to a prevention based quality system
will be impossible. The perception of QA being
responsible for quality combined with the human
factor (“100% inspection is only 80% accurate”1)
creates a fatal flaw in the quality system. I call this
effect “the flaw of degrading standards.”
The Flaw of Degrading Standards
When a defect is introduced into the product
stream, people often see it before the unit is
shipped. If the defect slips through the inspection
FIGURE 1 The Flaw of Degrading Standards
Standard
Trigger event
40 I JULY 2004 I www.asq.org
process, the party that introduced it and everyone
else who noticed it along the way will assume
there was no defect to begin with. “If QA didn’t
reject it, it must be good.”
Because 100% inspection is only 80% accurate,
even companies that do 100% inspection will allow
one out of five defects to slip through. However,
since it is assumed there was no defect to begin
with, manufacturing continues to produce more
units with the same defect. The one in five defects
that get through then become 20 in 100, for exam-
ple, resulting in lower customer satisfaction.
The longer this cycle continues, the more ingrained
the behavior becomes. When a trigger event such as a
customer complaint draws attention to the defect, the
token response is, “That’s the way we’ve always
done it,” or “It was good last time, so why is QA
rejecting it now?” thus deepening the philosophical
gap between manufacturing and QA.
Multiply this example of a single defect by all
the potential defects that could occur, and you will
see this is a losing battle. If a trigger event does not
occur, the standard practice will continue to decay
because it is caught in the vicious cycle of degrad-
ing standards (see Figure 1).
Without an increasing effort to maintain the
same standards, the quality system will deterio-
rate. Management can provide some resistance to
this decay by implementing procedures and work
instructions, but that will simply slow down the
process or move the trigger event forward in time.
The only other option is to change the rules, to
engineer the flaw out of the system.
Future State
In the future, successful manufacturers will
employ a system in which everyone checks the
quality of the parts that come to them, performs
work on the product and double-checks to ensure
the work they performed meets the standard. Then
virtually every employee will be responsible for
quality. With so many inspectors looking at the
product, very few defects will be shipped to the
customer.
On the surface this seems like a cure for all quali-
ty ills and, from the customer’s perspective, it is. But
this is still an inspection based system; the inspec-
tion function is simply decentralized. Instead of one
inspector looking at product full-time, a multitude
of inspector-operators spend some time building
product and some time inspecting it. The process
still has the same number of defects, but more of
them are caught.
To make the system complete, however, there
needs to be a prevention technique to reduce the
number of defects produced, not just the number
of defects shipped. Moving the inspection function
from QA to manufacturing provides the necessary
resources to put prevention techniques in place.
There are hundreds of prevention techniques
companies use to improve quality. This is not a
debate on which technique is best; it is a sugges-
tion for setting up an infrastructure to effectively
apply any of these tools, depending on the need
and the application.
Phase One: Empowerment
The goal of phase one is to empower employees
to take responsibility for the quality of their own
work and the work done before them. This is a
stark contrast to the philosophy, “Quality is QA’s
job,” and requires a culture change throughout
many organizations. In fact, J.M. Juran says the
first criterion for self-inspection is, “Quality must
be the number one priority within an organization.
If this is not clear, the worker may succumb to
schedule and cost pressures and classify, as accept-
able, products that should be rejected.”2
The ability to perform and verify quality work
requires employees to:
1. Know what to do.
2. Know the results of their work.
3. Have the authority and responsibility to pre-
vent defects from passing their station.
What to do. This condition is the hardest to ful-
fill because it requires the production and inspec-
tion processes to be well defined. “Before an
employee can know what he is doing, management
must determine what the employee is supposed to
be doing.”3
Production. The older a product line is, the more
mature the processes are. However, since much of
the process maturity is contained in the minds of
employees, it changes when they change. Whenever
long-term employees retire, the process knowledge
they had goes with them. This is similar to the flaw
of degrading standards in that the accepted product
or process standard decays over time.
To counter this effect, companies must develop
comprehensive documentation of the product and
process. Much of the product documentation work
has often been done through the engineering
group’s drawings and models. Of course, this must
continue until the entire spectrum of a company’s
products has been fully documented.
Documenting or freezing the process requires
detailed procedures that describe how it is done.
This can be accomplished with work instructions
and flowcharts, as long as the details of each step
are clear. If there is more than one possible way to
If management takes the
time to understand the
operator’s concerns, validate
them and determine whether
the unit meets the criteria,
the operator will be willing to
question another potentially
defective unit.
do a job, the right way must be defined. While this
step is easy to describe, few people realize how
much work is required to develop and maintain
process documentation. But without it, the entire
transition cannot proceed because the operator will
never know the single right way.
Inspection. In addition to knowing how to build
the units, the operator needs to know the criteria
for “good” and “bad.” For many parts, the draw-
ing or work instruction can show dimensions and
tolerances. Other parts, however, have numerous
characteristics that do not have specifications, or
the specifications are ambiguous.
The acceptance standard must be unequivocally
clear and available. If not, there is an increased risk
of operators rejecting good parts or, worse yet,
accepting bad parts. “Until operator, inspector,
QUALITY PROGRESS I JULY 2004 I 41
QUALITY BASICS
supervision, management and end user all agree on
the … standard, the problem is a management prob-
lem, not an employee controllable problem.”4 This
not only applies to the production work that has
been performed on the unit, but also transactional
errors, such as sales, engineering or vendor errors.
By their very nature, transactional errors are
often more difficult for assembly line personnel to
identify and end up being more serious. For exam-
ple, if the sales order is wrong, the entire job could
be incorrect. Attention at the operator level has
often been paid to manufacturing defects only.
When transactional errors occur, the operators are
generally unaware of them. Without trained opera-
tors to check for these errors, customers will suffer
because their expectations will not be met. Regard-
less of whether it was due to a transactional or
manufacturing error, the net result is the same.
Practice vs. procedure. For both the production
and the inspection functions, the established
approach must be identical to the documentation.
If they are in conflict, the employee will have to
choose between the standard practice and what the
procedure says. When one is chosen, the other is
necessarily violated, and this puts the employee in
a precarious lose-lose position. Management must
resolve all such inconsistencies for the operator to
be effective.
How they did. After the operators have per-
formed their production and inspection tasks, they
must receive feedback about their performance. Did
they follow the assembly process? Did they produce
a good part? Did they inspect the unit for any
upstream defects? Were their inspection decisions
correct? They need to have the answer to all these
questions to know whether an adjustment is needed.
During phase one, the quality group can provide
performance data to the supervisor, who then pass-
es it on to the operator. Eventually, each operator
should be able to provide a receiving inspection
report on the products that arrive at his or her
workstation. That is, operators check the part they
are about to work on for any upstream defects. If
they find one, they should record it and notify the
supervisor. This built-in feedback process can be
supplemented with a periodic off-line audit to
maintain confidence the customers are receiving
the finest quality.
In addition to the immediate feedback employees
42 I JULY 2004 I www.asq.org
receive from their supervisor and fellow employ-
ees, they should be provided long-term analysis of
the data. The quality group can give the operators a
broader perspective of the process by developing
control charts and training the operators on how to
use and interpret them. Provided with a more glob-
al picture of their performance, the operators can
take corrective action at the first sign of trouble.
Responsibility and authority. Juran cites four
criteria necessary to ensure an operator can regu-
late the process:5
1. The process must be capable of meeting the
tolerance.
2. The process must respond predictably to
adjustment.
3. The operator must be trained on how to adjust
the process.
4. The act of adjustment should not be personally
uncomfortable to the worker.
These criteria are easy to apply to a machine
process. We can do capability studies on machines,
study how to adjust them and train everyone else
on how to operate them. When we talk about
assembly processes, though, the criteria for respon-
sibility and authority change slightly.
Capability for many assembly processes is black
and white—the unit either has the correct part or it
doesn’t, the paint is either scratch-free or it’s not,
the motor either works or it doesn’t. The hard part
will have already been done during the production
and inspection documentation stages. The adjust-
ment then becomes training the operator to follow
the documentation or providing feedback with the
understanding that improvement is required.
Given the operators know what to do and how
they’re doing, the fourth criterion is paramount to
ensuring they will make the correct decision. For
each unit, their decision is either to accept the unit,
including the work they have done on it, or reject it
and stop the assembly line. If they have any pressure
from anyone, the fourth criterion will be violated.
The act of stopping the line will be uncomfortable
and might not be done when needed.
As strange as it sounds, operators must be
encouraged to stop production when there is a
question about the quality of a unit. Otherwise,
they will allow potentially defective product to
pass. It’s easy to tell the operators to stop the line
when they have a problem. The challenge comes
when production is behind FIGURE 2 Transition Flowchart
schedule, the customer is call-
ing for its units and an opera-
tor stops and says, “I’m not Phase one: empowerment Phase two: process improvement
sure about this one.”
Define and document Form and train a process
If the operator is hushed and production and improvement team in
forced to continue production, inspection processes. process improvement
he or she will never ask again. techniques.

If management takes the time

to understand the operator’s Resolve difference in
practice and procedure. Process improvement team and
concerns, validate them and senior management review
determine whether the unit committee selected projects.
meets the criteria, the operator
will be willing to question
another potentially defective Implement feedback
process to let operators Process improvement team
unit. Toyota sums it up well on know how they performed. studies the issue and
develops corrective actions.
its website:6
Empowerment
Consistently provide
… some of our competi- reinforcement to Process improvement team
tors rely on quality assur- encourage the operator presents findings to review
ance employees to inspect to put quality first. commmittee for approval.
a car after it leaves the
assembly line. While
admirable (we also inspect
and test our finished cars),
No
to our mind, such thinking Are we
Migrate quality assurance Approved?
is backward. Why wait confident in Yes inspection function to
operators'
until a car is assembled prevention/troubleshooting
decisions?
before discovering defects? activities.
Yes
Some are likely to be
buried beneath upholstery No
and plastic and may lie Review committee and process
hidden for thousands of Identify and take improvement team implement
corrective actions. the solution.
miles until the consumer
discovers them. Instead,
whenever an anomaly or
defect is noticed, the
assembly line can be
stopped and the cause of
the defect is identified … And after applying improve both transactional and manufacturing
such empowering principles for the past 50 years,
processes so inspection becomes unnecessary.
an interesting thing has happened: Our assembly
lines are rarely stopped at all. Since they have The process improvement cycle is well devel-
ownership in the process, Toyota associates have oped and follows predictable steps. It doesn’t mat-
the incentive to do things right the first time. ter whether you’re using plan-do-check-act, Six
Sigma or some other sound approach as long as
Phase Two: Process Improvement there is support from all levels of management.
If the goal is to cease dependence on inspection, This support must include training, visibility and
then the first phase sets the groundwork for the implementation (see Figure 2).
main focus—defect prevention. If we simply move Training. The traditional quality group often has
the inspection activities to the operator, we will the experience to lead the process improvement
still have an inspection based quality system. To cycle. However, other individuals on the team
realize the goal we must provide a mechanism to must be taught to use the improvement tools.

QUALITY PROGRESS I JULY 2004 I 43

QUALITY BASICS
Employees versed in the process improvement
cycle can do much of the introductory training, but
we still need to invest in higher level training for
the team members. For example, team members
might want to become ASQ certified quality tech-
nicians or Six Sigma Green Belts.
Visibility. Periodic reviews of the team’s initia-
tives must take place to keep the improvement
process in the forefront of the company’s collective
mind. Because many of the issues the team will
address could cut across varying functions and
departments, the review committee should be
made up of senior managers. They can help guide
the team’s projects to leverage the company’s
strengths or shore up any weaknesses. The team
will present its findings to the committee, and if
44 I JULY 2004 I www.asq.org
needed, the committee can assist in implementing
the team’s recommendation.
Implementation. While not every project will
have a scope across departments and functions,
some will. In these situations, the senior manage-
ment review committee must assist in implement-
ing process changes. The team should first present
its recommendations to the committee for approval.
Once they’re approved, the process owners, with
the team’s assistance, should then implement the
changes and report back to the committee on their
progress.
The transition process described here will allow
companies to better serve their customer’s needs
by providing better, cheaper and faster production.
It will be better because fewer defects will be pro-
duced. It will be cheaper because manufacturing
will spend more time producing good units and
less time reworking defective ones. And it will be
faster because there will be fewer disruptions,
resulting in higher productivity. The net result will
be a more satisfied, and therefore more loyal, cus-
tomer.
REFERENCES
1. Joseph M. Juran and Frank M. Gryna, Juran’s Quality
Control Handbook, McGraw-Hill, 1988.
2. Ibid.
3. Thomas Pyzdek, The Handbook for Quality Management,
Quality Publishing, 2000.
4. Ibid.
5. Juran, Juran’s Quality Control Handbook, see reference 1.
6. Toyota’s website, www.toyota.com.
DARIN J. CRAIG is the quality supervisor at International
Environmental Corp. in Oklahoma City. He earned a bach-
elor’s degree in business management from the University
of Phoenix in Oklahoma City. Craig is a member of ASQ
and is a certified quality manager, quality engineer and Six
Sigma Black Belt.
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