Stefan: Thanks for the clarification on the Siemens machine operation.
Yes Stefan, Germany and some other countries have wonderful apprentice programs. Generally, we Americans have the patience of a staving gerbil for such things.
Is the ON button the green or the red one?
It�s possible that the ISO-9000 foolishness will codify the six sigma tools, as you say, but experience and cynicism says otherwise �
* As I flip through my workbooks from a Du Pont "Solving Tough Quality Problems" course [circa 1987], it�s just like "Ground Hog Day". [By the by, speaking of "Ground Hog Day", did Bill Murray go through eight cycles of before he won the girl [A McDowell]? (A bar bet.)] We are being taught about the importance of the customer; flow charts; parento diagrams; posing problem causes; testing theories with scatter plots, experiment design, histograms, and sequence plots; solve or prevent problems; look at results; hold gains; needs of the team; and management role. Ooops, I copied that from the Du Dont course index.
* Steve Luftig�s "Introduction To SPC And Capability" course [written in 1985, revised in 1987] lays-out descriptive statistics, control chart theory, process control and capability for variable data, and process control and capability for attribute data. Again, we seem to be paving the same ground, but this time it has a skin coat of beige. [Oooops not beige, it�s black, hmm.]
* Blush of attraction wears off quickly. As I stated earlier, except General Electric, none of the big name six sigma proponents make money. When it comes to making your quarter, it doesn�t take a rocket scientist to cut training and such. SHOW ME THE MONEY!!!!
Now, I know that I won�t get a true adherent�s tail in a knot by stating that ISO-9000 is foolish. I�m just stating facts. Consider that in 1979 British Standards Institute xeroxed a copy of the then ancient 1960s vintage MIL-Q-9858A to produce BS 5750. [In truth, by 1979 the Brits had fumbled around with the limp wristed Mo 5 and BS 5170 for more than two decades before being struck with a lightning bolt of wisdom to create 5750.] In a wrong headed attempt to erect a barrier to US products, in 1987 the nascent European Community bulled ISO-9000, itself a xerox copy of BS 5750, through the International Organization For Standardization. What a joke!!! We learned how "comply" long before those dithering bureaucrats in Tha Hague [or where ever they are] could spell it!!!
After 13 years of trying to produce results [other than making registrars rich] with this seriously flawed document, what do they do? Trash the whole ISO-9000 thing and xerox the Baldridge Award criteria [circa, get this, 1987] and call it "ISO-9000-2000". Choice or what? [And registrars love changing the baseline, because it give them new ways to keep getting rich.]
Ho-hum. Let me put continuing with this rant aside for another day [I know you�re all sick of this, but the sound of rodents� feet scurrying in the over-head that you hear is people preparing to give you an opportunity to rewrite your quality manual to be complaint.]. One development in recent years that pleases me is the improved ease of use, dissemination, and application of experimental design techniques [e.g., Bhote, Taguchi].
Finally Ang, [without knowing how you selected "availability" as your project focus ( and recognizing that probably you are too far down the road to make course corrections, which makes these comments less than meaningful )]. I would like to see you select at theme like "improve [blank (placement?)] accuracy of [blank (SOIC in tubes?)] by [blank (97 scadzillion percent?)]" or reduce mis-printed boards by [blank]. Problems I have with availability are: * Linkage between availability and the paragon "making a very nice board" seems tenuous * You are whining about how tough it�s going to be to meet the change goal. [I think you should have a difficult, but immanently achievable goal on your first project. (Yano, low hanging fruit) Impossible goals should come on succeeding projects.] * Since you can�t measure it, as Stefan has said, proof of success will prove difficult.
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