What it is about QC

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Poez

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I just wish to say that it really upsets me when people talk about Quality Control, when they whant to discuss any product quality issues...
People, the QC is for loosers! It sucks anyway!
If quality of your goods is build not on the right materials, right equipment, qualified and motivated personell, but on just few poor souls who have to inspect and inspect the same boring objects the whole day through - man, your product is shit!
So saying that somebody's quality is slipping because of poor quality control is somehow... It might be slipping because the equipment is getting old, because they have high personnel turnover, because motivation or qualification issues - whatever. QC solves nothing. So lets not mix Quality and Quality Control! These things are not the same, for goods sake!
 
Yes. Some people are convinced that quality can be inspected into a product. Anyone who attempts to do that has the cart in front of the donkey and are doomed to failure.
 
I don't think people mix them up... When people complain about QC it's usually an issue they had with one knife that's an exception, not with the design. That would be something QC is supposed to catch.
 
Tsujigiri said:
I don't think people mix them up... When people complain about QC it's usually an issue they had with one knife that's an exception, not with the design. That would be something QC is supposed to catch.
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^^^Exactly.
 
And let's not talk about QA which is what should be implemented into every step of the manufacturing process. Then you off the QC guy and use a QA guy/gal for even the final inspection.
 
Any production process will show some variation in the product. Quality Control is the means a company uses to determine the extent and seriousness of that variation. Ideally, any seriously variant products will be removed before shipping, and the QC statistics will help the company correct problems in their production process.

This is just like testing students to see how well they are learning their lessons. A lot of test errors may mean the curriculum needs improving.
 
Esav Benyamin said:
Any production process will show some variation in the product. Quality Control is the means a company uses to determine the extent and seriousness of that variation. Ideally, any seriously variant products will be removed before shipping, and the QC statistics will help the company correct problems in their production process.

This is just like testing students to see how well they are learning their lessons. A lot of test errors may mean the curriculum needs improving.
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Inspecting 100% of your product for 100% of the possible variations is a very expensive proposition. The other method requires control of sample sizes and a good understanding of statistics. There are going to be escapes and their number has to understood, and agreed upon.

Inspection can catch gross repeating errors but anomalies are tough to control. Eliminating inspection and making each person, who performs each process responsible, can be a better solution if implemented properly with properly motivated workers.
 
GallantEdge said:
Inspection can catch gross repeating errors but anomalies are tough to control. Eliminating inspection and making each person, who performs each process responsible, can be a better solution if implemented properly with properly motivated workers.
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I agree.
A knife manufacturer should make QC part of every persons job in the process. Inspecting not only their step, but every aspect of the knife they are now working on and having the authority to reject one that does not meet the company standards. This method can provide near 100% quality with minimal additional labor costs.

I think that is what Ford tried to do with their "Quality is Job 1".
 
GallantEdge said:
Eliminating inspection and making each person, who performs each process responsible, can be a better solution if implemented properly with properly motivated workers.
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I find that workers that respect and take pride in their profession are a thing of the past. You just don't find that kind of professionalism and dedication to one's job anymore. A shame, really.
 
Poez said:
I just wish to say that it really upsets me when people talk about Quality Control, when they whant to discuss any product quality issues...
People, the QC is for loosers! It sucks anyway!
If quality of your goods is build not on the right materials, right equipment, qualified and motivated personell, but on just few poor souls who have to inspect and inspect the same boring objects the whole day through - man, your product is shit!
So saying that somebody's quality is slipping because of poor quality control is somehow... It might be slipping because the equipment is getting old, because they have high personnel turnover, because motivation or qualification issues - whatever. QC solves nothing. So lets not mix Quality and Quality Control! These things are not the same, for goods sake!
Click to expand...

You've obviously never worked in a factory.
Factories are staffed by humans. Humans make errors.
QC finds those errors.

You should try working in a factory sometime. You'd whine less.
 
aznpos531 said:
I find that workers that respect and take pride in their profession are a thing of the past. You just don't find that kind of professionalism and dedication to one's job anymore. A shame, really.
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I agree. I worked at one place that built a large complex product. Each piece of equipment was computer tracked and each process step was logged with the operators name. Even then people could not be trusted to do their jobs.
 
GallantEdge said:
I agree. I worked at one place that built a large complex product. Each piece of equipment was computer tracked and each process step was logged with the operators name. Even then people could not be trusted to do their jobs.
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Were you a worker on the shop floor who built those complex pieces of equipment?

I'll listen to you if you were actually a worker on the shop floor. If you weren't then yours is just another opinion.
 
knarfeng said:
You've obviously never worked in a factory.
Factories are staffed by humans. Humans make errors.
QC finds those errors.

You should try working in a factory sometime. You'd whine less.
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:D you made me chukle Frank. I worked in a canning factory one summer. Never been cut so much and so often in such a short time frame. Our QC department was a microbiologist and a chemical engineer. Fun stuff.
 
knarfeng said:
Were you a worker on the shop floor who built those complex pieces of equipment?

I'll listen to you if you were actually a worker on the shop floor. If you weren't then yours is just another opinion.
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Yes. I worked on the floor and I was good at it. I was a team leader at times and had to interface between the QC team and my coworkers.
 
GallantEdge said:
Yes. I worked on the floor and I was good at it. I was a team leader at times and had to interface between the QC team and my coworkers.
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Good enough. I'm an engineer these days. I started my working career on the shop floor doing the lowest paid drudge jobs, and I have worked with many shop floor workers over the years. My experience is that most shop floor workers want to do a good job. (yes, there are some who don't care. For me, they have been the exception.) My experience also is that errors creep into any manual process. Many operations of knife manufacturing is manual. This leaves room for error.
 
It has nothing to do with with wanting to do good. To err is human, and even automated processes are set up by humans. Quality assurance and quality control Always need to be in place and set up right.
 
Bingo. It's about putting in place as many measures as you can in the hopes that errors will be caught as they occur rather than at the end of the line...but QC is still necessary because no one is perfect! We all make mistakes--even with machines--and sometimes it's even equipment malfunction that's part of the problem. When I bought my French horn, for instance, the store had two of the model I was looking at and they had come one after the other off of the assembly line. I was allowed to test play both to see which one played best, and there was a definite difference. Both were fine horns...but one was much finer. This was due to unavoidable variation in the product. The reason folks complain about QC is because something that already slipped past a bunch of people ended up making its way to the QC department...and passed when it shouldn't have.
 
Most of us know that Chris Reeve makes one of the, if not the most consistently high quality production knives anywhere. I think I read somewhere once that Chris or a member of his team did QA check after every single manufacturing step. I for one would beleive it. They focus on quality not quantity. (as a former Reeve dealer, I for one know how long it takes to get ten sebenzas in)
 
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