I agree with you Mark that the lower quality is probably the side effect of unclear specifications. Or looking from another view: probably they WERE clear in the minds and hands of the people producing. They were clear implicitly; not explicitly and obviously this ‘muda’ becomes more visible when people are moved to other positions they are not used to work. (Which makes me think that this economical situation can also be a benefit for those companies that recognize this opportunity for finding waste they didn’t see before…)

Besides this, I was thinking there might be an additional explanation for decreased quality. Often a direct link between quality and costs is made in organizations. Quality costs are the sum of quality failure costs (repairs, claims, customer dissatisfaction), quality inspection (inspection, quality control equipment, working time needed for finding and analyzing defects) and quality prevention costs (job instruction, training, preventive maintenance, using quality parts). The latter category requires continuous small investment in terms of time and money to avoid much bigger costs (time, money) later in time. Short term investments vs. long term benefits. In the current situation of limited cash flow there is constant challenge towards many managers to save direct working hours and direct costs. The short term costs with an indirect saving in the future – like the quality prevention costs – are often the first and easiest ‘quick wins’ to find.

Here are a few examples to back up my original post. A friend of mine in the construction business recently retired and had some major renovation work done to his lakeside home. Part of the program was a complete new set of kitchen appliances – and all of them nothing but top notch stuff mind you.

The microwave oven cost just a few ticks over two grand. It lasted two weeks and then stopped working. He took it back to the store he bought it at and they cheerfully gave him another. “We replace these all of the time” said the clerk. “But isn’t this the best one you sell?” asked my friend. “Yea, but they don’t seem to last as long as they used to” came the reply.

The Dish Washer was the next thing to clutch its chest one week later. Again, this was a top of the line model from a very well known manufacturer whose former CEO has written several best selling books. (Get my drift?) When the service man arrived, he quickly diagnosed the problem as a fried circuit board. “Yup, these go all the time” he said as he pulled a new board out of the truck. “What makes you think that new board will work any longer than the first one?” my friend asked. “Don’t worry, it’s under warranty” was the reply. Of course my friend was thinking about what happens when the warranty expires.

Then there’s a personal example. I’ve driven the same brand of truck for almost 25 years. I’m on my 6th one and I always got well over 50,000 miles out of my front brakes and 60,000 out of the rears. When I bought my latest truck (in 2005), the rear brakes were absolute junk after only 23,000 miles and the fronts were in similar shape after 26,000 miles. (No change in my driving style by the way.) When I complained to the dealer, they said that everybody was having similar problems with the new model, but brakes were a wear item and not covered under warranty. They did say that since brake parts were now so much cheaper, one should be able to afford a complete brake job more often! You can guess what my reply was.

Here’s another personal example. I recently bought a digital camera from a prominent photographic company headquartered in the US. The camera arrived with the wrong lens cap. So, I went to the company web site and sent them an e-mail. They responded by noting that I had to call a Customer Service 800 number. To make a long story short, I ended up having to call three different 800 numbers – each in increasingly distant parts of the world and each staffed by people who knew (and cared) less than the previous person and who barley spoke understandable English. I finally got my lens cap about 3 weeks later, but my several hour long ordeal convinced me never to buy from this company again. Somebody sure picked the low bidder for outsourced customer support!

Last, but not least is my most distasteful example. A company that a good friend works for has been on about a 10 year long path from vertically integrated domestic manufacturer (with a stellar quality reputation) to outsourced manufacturing – mostly in China. Quality and brand image have tumbled significantly. Since Purchasing has taken over the seat of power in the company from manufacturing, the quality direction has changed dramatically too. In fact, one Purchasing manager has often stated that “Quality is a subset of Unit Manufacturing Cost.” You can guess what this type of thinking has done for quality.

So why do I think this is happening? I believe it all comes down to short term thinking and the pressure to perform. In each and every example I’ve noted above, conscious decisions were made by management to cut costs. Oddly enough, in each and every instance, quality suffered. The funny thing is, many people seem to think this is completely acceptable. Am I alone in thinking this is totally unacceptable?

When I was a quality manager my biggest mindset of that company I had to overcome was that you could not inspect quality into a product. Since it was viewed that quality was an inspector’s job it was up to them to find what was wrong. Like Mark said, the expectations of what a quality should be were not defined so it was up to someone’s opinion and not a standard. Until we started putting standards in place, nothing changed.

When I was a production manager I spent a lot of time defining standard work for the line with the goal of building quality into the product. My view of standard work(and Mark may correct me) was to provide the right tools, right information, right parts to the correct location so a team member can complete the task CORRECTLY in a specified amount of time(takt).

In this instance I took out the perception that quality=high cost. Quality became standard work. The consistant results also helped to take out the variability of the product flow(heijunka). We were not running around reworking everything. If that happened, it was clearly seen(andon) and a corrective action was put in place.

Like Mark said, you need to define what the standard is, but include enough time to do the job right. If you are getting the whip out to speed up output then corners will get cut. You have shifted out of looking at standard work. Standard work does not change with the current economic conditions. If you want to decrease cycle time, put your lean hat on and get rid of the waste. Don’t cut corners!

Duke