I often feel that back in the ’80’s we over did quality and it got a bad name when consultants and auditors made compliance overly complex and onerous on both the organisation and individuals alike.

I myself once took on a role early in my NZ career, and had a pile of “Non Conformance Reports” on my desk to investigate the root cause and report back. I recalled on such problem that had been kicking around for ten years without being fixed, costing hours or wasted production and reputation loss with the customer.

The Shingo Principle “Assure Quality at the Source” is loaded with behaviours and systems, some of which have not altered in decades and the TQM days of the 80’s and 90’s.

For instance “Mistake or error Proofing Processes” which is a common sense approach to Quality. The behaviour is to ensure processes are designed to prevent, reveal and immediately rectify every single problem.

Ideally if a mistake happens the team stops, takes time to analyse and generates solutions to address the root cause of the problem.

Problem Solving training such as 5W’s, fishbone and 5 Whys are in play. Getting to the Root Cause of problems is part of the culture and goals are set to eliminate problems, and there is cross functional meetings to include the right people to get to the solutions.

Our Shingo ” Continuous Improvement” workshop covers the 5 key principles supporting Continuously Improving, of which “Assure Quality at the Source” is just one of.

Contact me for further details.