80s Recollection (cont.)

It was difficult working as a lean supplier given all the different quality systems we had to oblige for each and every customer.  It was most confusing for the operators assigned at their work cells.  They were required to fill out documents that varied daily depending on which customer’s parts they were producing. 

A lack of extensive training and poor comprehension of statistical methods resulted in confusion, affecting quality in some instances.

In my opinion, customers were developing their own quality systems in order to prove their quality systems were better than the competition’s.

The reason for mentioning W. Edwards Deming in my previous post is because he was one of the physician/mathematicians that not only understood and relied heavily on statistics, he educated many company officials the benefits of using statistics.  He is well known for a specific statement as follows:  “improving quality will reduce expenses while increasing productivity and market share”. 

Deming was American and only after his 80^th year was approached to assist one of the North American OEMs to teach them his techniques which made the Japanese successful with their quality management systems.

Deming didn’t invent mathematics or statistics. He just understood them well and applied them.  For a small bio on Deming click here. I strongly believe that knowing the path we took in the past will help us build a stronger path moving forward into the future.  After all, we learn from the past.