InvestorsHub Logo

Crow3

03/09/06 6:37 PM

#9625 RE: d4diddy #9624

Where I "worked" before retirement, we did away with Inspectors altogether.

(I put the quotation around "worked", because the legend was that supervisors/managers did no work..LOL!!)

From a staff of about 15 QC personnel, I reduced it to two, one to handle customer relations, and one to keep check on processes and procedures. I took personal supervision of both of them, giving them their assignments.

The first line supervisors and workers were issued their own QC stamps, making them responsible for their own work quality. The second line managers were well indoctrinated on the principles of total quality management, and were expected to implement them. Which they did.

There were other things that I and my outfit did that enhanced customer support. But doing away with the long standing reliance on inspection was the immediate cause of vastly improved customer satisfaction.

One other thing..the old Ernest and Ernest "production measurement" thing, I tossed out and left such to the bean counters to mess with, so long as they kept to hell out of the way.

The "used hours" and "earned hours" were kept up with by them, and I told my supervisors to ignore any figures that they heard, and to follow about the only "rule" that I kept... as soon as they finished an item, go on to the next one. If they ran out of work to do, do nothing.. Getting them more work was my job. "Make work" and "looking busy" is destructive to good processes and procedures in several ways.

Afterwards, the bean counters could hardly believe the "effectiveness" or "efficiency" figures that they saw.