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You Can’t Improve a Process If You Can’t Measure It

Putting continuous improvement and precision measurement into everyone's hands

Looking back. Moving ahead.

You Can’t Improve a Process If You Can’t Measure It

Putting continuous improvement and precision measurement into everyone's hands

Looking back. Moving ahead.
Dirk Dusharme @ Quality Digest
Thu, 01/13/2022 - 12:01
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All articles in this series
Quality Digest Celebrates a Scrappy 40 Years
40 Years of Quality Digest
Deming Speech 1978: ‘Quick Review of Some New Principles of Administration’
Stepping Off the Cliff of Success
Quality 2022: Two Big Changes Ahead
Happy 40th, QD!
You Can’t Improve a Process If You Can’t Measure It
A 40-Year-Old Bone of Contention
The Ghost of Quality Future
What Advice Would You Give a Quality Rookie? Readers Respond.
Body

No matter which quality management methodology, technique, or fad du jour you chose during the past 40 years, from quality circles to TQM to Six Sigma, all had one thing in common: data. In manufacturing this eventually meant measurement data. Whether it was dimensional, time, temperature, frequency, pressure, or some other metric, somewhere in manufacturing somebody used measurement equipment to verify the quality characteristics of the part being manufactured. This person was typically a specialist either by profession or experience.

This specialization prevented the goal of modern quality, which is that quality is everyone’s job. How can a manufacturing employee be part of quality if they can’t measure their own work or verify the parts they’re assembling? And yet, that’s the way it’s been since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Assemblers assemble and testers test. Yes, eventually line workers got go/no go gauges, snap gauges, and some simple dimensional tools, but assembly complexity grew faster than the ability of the tools used by the average worker. It’s like giving a carpenter a stack of precut lumber, a box of nails, plans for a house… but no measure.

 …

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