Structured Problem Solving

Week 2
Before you start problem solving…
… we need to know what the problem is!
 Week 2 Agenda
I. Product Non-Conformances
this is our starting point
II. Forming a Problem Statement
the 1st formal step in structured problem solving
III. Reacting to Quality Problems
Launching (or not) Structured Problem Solving
Who Identifies Quality Problems
As a Quality professional, you will be expected to
recognize, describe, and solve quality issues as
they arise, from multiple sources;
• Incoming Material Inspection
• In Process Inspection
• Finished Parts Inspection
• KPI (Key Performance Indicators)
• Supplier Quality Reports
• Audit Reports
Product Non-Conformances
Half the battle is simply and
clearly describing the problem.
That’s what we will focus on today.
 Product Non-Conformances
In any manufacturing facility, parts are being
inspected regularly, against some technical
drawing or specification, and we find lots of:
Product Non-Conformance
(Does not meet a technical specification)

This is our starting point. These non-conformances

will form the basis of our problem statement that
will launch our investigation.
 Not This!
“Houston, we have a problem!”
or
“There’s a problem with the parts!”
or
“There is something wrong with
the process.”

None of these are very helpful.

Why?
 This!
“Houston, we have a problem!”
NASA Transcript:

Swigert: "Okay, Houston, we've had a problem here."

Lousma: "This is Houston. Say again please."

Lovell: "Houston, we've had a problem. We've had a main B

bus undervolt."

Lousma: "Roger. Main B undervolt."

Even astronauts need to state the problem clearly,

so everyone knows what they are talking about.
They’ll want a lot more detail than this, of
course…
 We need details!
We need to know exactly what the
problem is that we’re trying to
solve.
Imagine taking your motorcycle to a
mechanic and just saying
“it’s broken – fix it!”
They will either not start, or worse –
charge you a LOT of money to look
for as many problems as they can!
 Product Non-Conformances
• Even simple parts
have *many*
dimensional and
other requirements.
• I count ~50
diameters, lengths,
depths, shapes,
locations, etc
requirements on this
drawing alone!
• So we need to be
*very specific* when
we are reporting a
problem.

Image source: https://www.rapiddirect.com/blog/engineering-drawing-tips/

 Product Non-Conformances
Operators or QC will often report findings in terms of:
• Actual vs Required value
For example;
– Dimension {D} reads {92.6–95.6} vs requirement of {94.0–98.0}
– The LED brightness is 12-18 lux below customer spec of 100 MIN.
– The final packaged weight is 500 to 525g above limit of 10.1kg.
• They state the dimension or feature being measured
• They report the actual readings
• They report the required value
 Product Non-Conformances
Notice that QC/Operators will often give a range of
values like this to express the minimum and
maximum reading they found when inspecting a
batch.
For example;
– Dimension A varies from 101.1 to 121.1…
– Brightness of LED panels varies from 800 to 1000 Lux…

We then assume that the rest of the pieces measured

somewhere in between those extremes stated.
 Product Non-Conformances
This is “normal” but not great.
Let’s say QC measures 1000 pieces, and just reports:
“Dimension A varies from 96 to 104 vs a requirement of 98 to 102.”
• Let’s us know that there IS some non-conformance: over and under-sized,
but…
– Only tells us that at least 1 part was 96 and 1 part was 104.
– We don’t know ANYTHING about all the other parts/measurements.
– It’s possible that 998 parts were perfect.
– It’s possible that all 1000 parts were out of tolerance.
– It’s possible that 999 were at 96 and only 1 pc at 104.
– We often ASSUME (!) that the readings are equally distributed within the stated range.
• This is why we will want to generate histograms or other data plots to give us
more useful information to go on, once/if we launch an investigation.
• QC might provide a list of values, and circle or highlight the non-conforming
ones, or at least give a count of rejections. (ie, 16 pcs were out of tolerance)
 Product Non-Conformances
Another important detail QC might report is:
• Count or Rate of Rejection
For example;
– {12%} of parts fail to meet Dimension {D}
or even better…
– {12 out of 92 inspected} LED panels are below spec limit for
brightness
– {12% of all completed customer surveys} rate us 2 stars or lower.
• This detail helps us understand how pervasive or serious
the problem is. Is it rare? A few pieces? Most of the
parts? Every part?
 Product Non-Conformances
Knowing the rate of rejection is going to be very
important to us when we are deciding how to react.
• High Rate of Rejection = Investigate! Urgent!
• Low Rate of Rejection = Investigate? Maybe not.
 Other Quality Problems
Structured Quality Problem Solving is not limited to
product non-conformances
• Waste of Resources (time, energy, etc.)
- aka the “7 wastes” identified by Lean Methodology
• Service related metrics
– Customer satisfaction, wait times, accounting errors,
safety concerns, running out of inventory, etc.
For example;
– Downtime of the CNC machine exceeds 20%
– Drive through window wait times exceed 90s during rush hour
Product Non-Conformances
Any questions?