ISO 9000 is an international standard for manufacturing excellence. It's world wide. More and more customers are demanding their suppliers be certified as ISO 9000 compliant. Twice I was involved in pushing the company into compliance with ISO-9000. Quite a push, each time. It's gotten so widespread that I saw a lumber mill in far northern Ontario sporting an ISO 9000 banner on it's front lawn. At this point, if you are a manufacturer, and you want your customers the think you make good stuff, rather than junk, you get yourself ISO 9000 certified.
So what are we talking about here? At bottom it's pretty simple. There is only one way to make the product right. There are thousands of ways of making it wrong. Your production line workforce are willing, but they aren't experienced craftsmen or technicians, they don't understand the product very well. If you carefully explain to each line worker what he must do to make the product right, and give him written instructions, from which he must never deviate, then that line will turn out a consistent, probably a good, product. The foremen must know all the procedures, and make sure the line workers comply with them. When so-and-so doesn't show up for work, the foreman has to grab somebody else and get him doing so-and-so's job to keep production running. For this to work right, the written job instructions have to be readily available, and written in plain English, not techno-geek gibberish.
One of the important jobs is incoming inspection. At a minimum the inspector must verify that what was shipped is the same as what was billed for. No short weight, no wrong part number. In a lot of cases, the incoming parts are tested to make sure they work, meet spec, will fit. If incoming accepts something that isn't right, the production line will put that part into the product. Ignition switches for example.
To get certified, the company hires an agency, which sends an inspection team to walk their production line, see that the workers know what they are doing, that written instructions are readily available, and that the workers are following those instructions. They ask questions, like "What do you do if a part doesn't meet spec?" The correct answer, the answer that gets the company certified, is "We reject the shipment and send it back."
Now let's take a look at GM, old Government Motors. We have the new GM CEO, a thirty year veteran in the company engineering department. She says "Just because the part doesn't meet spec doesn't mean it isn't acceptable." In front of a Congressional committee no less. This is the CEO saying this. If the top person doesn't think compliance with written procedures is important, does anyone at GM do things by the book? What happens on GM production lines with that kind of corporate culture. Especially on graveyard shift? As I think about that one, buying a Ford begins to make a lot of sense to me.
GM may have canned 15 people over the ignition switch disaster, but does anyone think that is enough to get the word around?
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