Ready, Shoot, Aim!!!!

Whew, what set you off, amigo? You're absotively on target. Those book authors are writing to their own peer group audience, therefore all you get is techno geek jargon. It takes a seasoned (basted lightly)veteran to interpret. You know, the battle hardened sergeant, always in the trenches, who saves the butt of many a 90 day wonder 2nd Lieu-ey. I say, demand the publisher take the draft to the grass roots users for proofing and get something useful. That is my root cause analysis.

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David

Thanks for telling me about this web-site! Great site!

I very much appreciated this message. To be honest, after reading some of the other messages here on this forum, I almost decided that this site was not for me. Seems like most / all of the talk is technical in nature. Technical is, of course, necessary. But it's not where the TRUE Root Cause Effort focuses.

In my "world," we make a distinction between PHYSICAL, HUMAN, and LATENT causes of "things that go wrong." The PHYSICAL causes are the technical causes. The HUMAN causes identify things people DO (or don't do) that lead to the PHYSICAL causes. LATENT causes address WHY PEOPLE DO WHAT THEY DO, and end-up talking about the things on your list.

I would very much like to participate in a dialogue here.

What can I do to assure this?

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Dear David,

Like Mr. Robert Nelms, I must be included in the "anal" consultants category. While I understand your frustration and dissatisfaction with whatever approach you were using, there is progress being made out there.

The "right" consultants are oftentimes people that come from the industry they consult in. I suspect from the sounds of your extensive experience and expertise that you may one day take the early retirement package and come back to consult in your industry.

No matter what Root Cause Approaches are out on the market, all have to agree on the science behind the mechanics of failure: there are a series of cause and effect relationships that lead to any undesireable outcome. This is not opinion, this is fact.

The difference behind that various RCA approaches you mentioned is the manner in which they graphically derive and express these relationships. Some use 5-Whys, some use fishbones, some use fault trees; whatever the case, all of them express cause and effect relationships.

Your task is to find which one is the most valid for your circumstance. One of the main differences between these approaches are which ones require verification of their hypotheses. In many approaches, a team brainstorms and comes up with causes then moves right into solution. If the causes are not backed up with data, then it is basically hearsay. Does hearsay hold up in court?

It is unfortunate that you did not find value in whatever approach you used. I can assure you that many of consultants out there can provide you references to check with and sound case histories to demonstrate their success in the field.

However, many of these approaches do not fail because of a deficiency in the method, but because management does not support the effort. You can have the best analysts and method in the world, but if management does not support the task in the field, it is doomed. Just because a company has a fancy CMMS system, does that mean it will be useful and effective in the field. Not if the users do not know how to use it!!

I am one of those authors you listed and I invite you to read not only our approach, but the others. Then you decide which is the most practical for you.

Thanks for sparking the discussion and I hope you find the approach that will optimize your lengthy experience and expertise.

Best Regards,

Robert J. Latino Vice President Reliability Center, Inc. www.reliability.com

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C-Tech is the 8th fastest growing company in New Jersey, yet we are so small and can not afford to buy expensive assembly equipment. Currently in production, we have 8 different through-hole boards and 1 surface nount board. In the past we have had the smt boards asembled by a contract manufacturer which was ok but very expensive. We have since been assembling this board in-houseusing the simplest process known to man, but this still requires much time to complete even one panel (16 boards). This board consists of: 2 elec. caps, 4 ceramic chip caps, 8 chip resistors, 2 transistors, a diode and 1 IC. The package sizes include 0805, 1206, SOT-23, FM-1, and SOIC-14. I am currently screening the paste on by hand, then placing the parts on by hand and using a hot air iron to complete the process. This process does work for the quantities, but i am the only one here who can do this and i am up to my neck in protos. Would anyone be able to direct me towards a new method or maybe some cheap equipment? sorry for posting in this thread!

thanks, Ed Hart

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Hi Dave, we were touching that topic already during our 6 sigma dialog. I strongly believe the root cause for most of the problems is lack of education. I also find that sometimes employees use the information deficit as a protective shield, like � I�m not trained to fix the problem, so I thought someone else will do.....�. Unfortunately, most of the time there is nobody else. Knowing how to fix the problem also means you are responsible for fixing it. What are the rewards if you do so? Do you get more pay?

If you are sufficiently trained for your job and you receive adequate payment, it will be difficult to explain to yourself and to your boss why you did not attack the problem.

Now, what is sufficient training? It used to take me a week to install a machine and train the customer. In fact, I could have easily spent four weeks and more. I assume the customers would not have bought the machine to begin with, knowing that there was 4 weeks of training involved to operate the machine. In a very competitive environment of electronic assembly, nobody seems to recognize the benefit of long time training. Manufactures seek for employees already trained. The kind of training these employees received were the one week instruction during installation some years ago, plus the experience that the machine always broke down and that the machine manufacturer has to take the blame for it.

The top level and their mislead managers may argue that employees training will result in higher cost of the end product. I can not proof that the increased quality and yield due to better skilled operators computes even with the cost of training, but I know for sure that the consumers are willing to spend more money for quality products. The employees pride for his/her contribution to the end product and the loyalty to the employer who covered the cost for the training can hardly be measured in $$$ figures.

Speaking about cost of training. How much does it cost in comparison to send a manager to a training class about leadership and problem solving and a machine operator for fixing machine problems? Why is it so much easier to spend that money and waste it, for yet another idea of leader ship and for the consultants who praise these ideas. I do admit that my employer wasted the money to send me to that manager training.

In the past ten years I have not seen much of a change the machines operate, or in the way the boards are manufactured, but I have seen a lot of different theses and book titles for problem solving managers.

As usual, Dave is right to attack the root cause of the problem instead of problem management. Spend the money for the grass roots manufacturing the products, instead of the managers who try to build the people!

On some other manufacturing sites I visited, unions did not permit the operators to fix the machine problems. But I guess this is another topic.

Stefan

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