It was a beautiful spring morning but the traffic was horrific on HWY101 so I had to hurry. I didn’t have time to enjoy the ride even though I had pulled back the rag top on my little red Miata. The traffic was doing its snaking thing. Moving fast for a half mile then suddenly stopping. I didn’t understand why we all couldn’t just accelerate at the same time all pushing on the pedal at once and stop this infernal snaking. It appeared every hill in the road caused someone up there to brake as they were afraid to top it without first stopping and easing over. I knew just ahead we’d reach the last hill and a valley would put an end to this traffic dance. Not long after topping the hill and getting up to a respectable speed it happened. This car startled me passing on the median going 90 to nothing. I watched it weave through traffic never once seeing its brake lights. All of a sudden it cut off a white van appearing to nick the front bumper. The driver of the van must have been as startled as me because he swerved and the van toppled. As it skidded all hell broke loose. An enormous amount of dust and smoke just blew cars off the road in every direction. I pulled my car to the side of the road jumped out and raced to the scene. That morning I reset three broken bones, performed a tracheotomy, and helped a woman give birth and oh yes among the wreckage I found a nuclear device that I disarmed before HASMAT arrived. I had to, the countdown was almost completed!

At least that’s the excuse I used with the technology group that morning as to why I was a few minutes late. Almost in disbelief they asked how I had accomplished this unbelievable feat. I took out my cell phone, got on the internet and showed them the Automated Reasoning Technology software website. With this software they would be able to perform these same actions flawlessly.

But I told them that they would ultimately face much more dangerous situations. I explained that every day a couple billion people go to work, some performing complicated tasks that will directly affect each of our lives. Decisions will be made by people on our behalf in government, healthcare, pharmaceutical and transportation businesses all requiring faultless work to be performed if we’re to remain healthy. There are plenty of examples of what can happen when things go wrong. How will they be able to accomplish it?

One example is the reduction of counterfeit materials through the use of UID’s (Universal Identification Databases). Counterfeit materials are being uncovered in precarious places like aircraft landing gears, etc. Today there are various databases being setup by entities such at the Department of Defense in the US, NATO in Europe and others that can identify, catalogue and track all materials and equipment that is worthy of tracing. When finished anyone will have the ability to scan in a traceable item and see immediately what it’s supposed to be, who made it, its genealogy and where it supposedly resides.

Along with this capability, an Automated Reasoning Technology application can use multimedia presentations to explain where this material is used, provide expert step by step guidance on installing it, etc. This guidance will not just be about identifying and using the proper tools and materials. The application will also utilize an expert knowledgebase to provide directions on what to do in real-time, point of activity guidance with feedback, on each step in whatever needs to be accomplished. When equipment or tools are to be used the application will first ascertain that they are the right tools for the job and in proper working order if required. If not the application will explain what tool is required and where the nearest ones are. At the most appropriate steps the application will verify that those steps taken thus far were completed successfully.

If problems arise during verification or during the completion of an activity on an operational step the application will select the best alternative action that should be taken and guide the person through those activities to assure the work is completed successfully and most efficiently.

To accomplish this a change in the traditional approach with traditional technology and methodology is required. By and large technology companies and consultants alike are marketing and promoting solutions that unknowingly perpetuate the problem while incidentally lining their pockets. This statement may sound odd especially given recent history which would indicate that technology has been a positive influence on quality and productivity improvement. Since the 1970s, companies have relied upon information technology to run or assist with key business functions. Older technologies collected data while analysis remained a manual task. Just as these systems were a major improvement over manual data collection methods, the current solutions are light years ahead of previous information technologies. Today’s data warehousing systems provide complex, versatile, multidimensional time series analysis, rather than just data collection and viewing. This has given rise to a couple of major problems.

First, organizations are now drowning in data and will succeed only to the extent that they are able to harness it to make better, more informed decisions (Business Intelligence Portal). The solution proposed by big technology companies? Data warehouse appliances, software designed to handle complex analyses on terabytes of data are a fundamental new way of enabling companies to conduct in-depth analyses of this data and leverage the important trends and information contained within it.  At least that’s the scenario used to promote these latest offerings. Additionally, software is being promoted that supposedly takes the next step of automatically acting on the data analysis. Performance management is just one application that’s based upon managing, motivating, rewarding and developing employees to improve performance and positively impact business results with the analysis. ^{Performance Management – Catching the Wave}

Second, in the CFO magazine article “Burn Down the Data Warehouse” author John Goff reports that about 30% of the data stored in these warehouses is bad. He estimated the resulting costs at over $600 billion.

Even if the data were 100% correct there is a fundamental flaw in approach that thanks to recent technology improvements can be overcome. The traditional approach to improving quality has been CAPA (Corrective Action Preventive Action). CAPA programs are mandated for government contracts and most companies in the private sector develop similar programs. All of these programs have at least one thing in common. They are engaged at the recognition of a problem. This means the problem already exists and a costly solution must be developed to counteract it and its affects. As you might imagine this task can be especially daunting if you’ve never seen the problem before or are unfamiliar with the specific technology associated with the problem. The fact is, most companies spend between 40% to 60% of their resources on efforts aimed at recognizing, collecting, organizing, analyzing, reporting, monitoring and fixing situations…And guess what, a 2009 research study from Axendia says only 6% of problems handled in this manner are successfully eliminated.

While software corporations are promoting Data Warehouses, Intelligence portals, Performance Management applications, etc. the real solution doesn’t lie in this technology. What’s wrong with this structure? It always starts with a problem! In other words, it’s always after the fact. As the flat world approaches, organizations that are able to bypass this structure will have a major competitive advantage.

In the traditional quality approach the methodology assumes we know nothing about the problem and need to gather information, usually starting with the customer. Only after the problem becomes frequent enough to be costly and worth the time to expend the resources needed to research a root cause will an attempt be made to fix it. While the traditional approach assumes ignorance the new approach assumes, if you will, WISDOM (the ability to use knowledge and understanding successfully to solve problems, avoid or avert dangers, attain certain goals, or counsel others in doing so. It is the opposite of foolishness, stupidity, and madness, with which it is often contrasted).

Are most quality problems difficult to resolve? No, the vast majority of problems are caused by omissions or mistakes at the point of activity. These problems can be avoided by locking down the work process and verifying work activities to business rules, regulations, specifications, etc. in real-time at the point of activity. What about problems caused by suppliers or generated in other parts of the supply chain? No matter where the problem is created there is almost always someone in the extended supply chain that understands the problem and knows the solution. Harnessing that knowledge and making it available to the worker in real-time is the solution I’m proposing. Fortunately the technology now exists that allows the prevention of problems.

Turns out I’m living longer than I was supposed to and I can’t help but notice that something is peculiar. It seems that every so often a repeating of events, philosophies, etc. occurs… and it’s really starting to bug me. Anyway as I was saying, it would appear I’ve seen all this before! The names have changed but the problems that seem to continually give birth to these “solutions” are still running rampant. We have had GURU’s rise in the Quality Revolution of the 80’s with no known survivors… At any rate we have a new generation that seem to be replowing the field of knowledge for some unknown reason. Take for example the definition of Quality. 

Some time ago Quality Digest spent several weeks asking their readers to define quality. Their readership is from the Quality profession and below are some of the definitions they received:

1. Error-free, value-added care and service that meets and/or exceeds both the needs and legitimate expectations of those served as well as those within the Medical Center.
2. Quality is the customers’ perception of the value of the suppliers’ work output
3. You cannot separate the process and the human factor; therefore I believe that Quality, when built into a product, generates emotions and feelings within those who have taken part in its creation. When you have made something that you are proud of, when you have produced a product that brings smiles to your customers, then you have achieved Quality. You’ll know it, they’ll know it, and each of you will prosper from it.
4. The word “Quality” represents the properties of products and/or services that are valued by the consumer.
5. Quality is a momentary perception that occurs when something in our environment interacts with us, in the pre-intellectual awareness that comes before rational thought takes over and begins establishing order. Judgment of the resulting order is then reported as good or bad quality value.
6. Quality is doing the right things right and is uniquely defined by each individual.
7. The degree to which something meets or exceeds the expectations of its consumers.
8. “Quality is nothing more or less than the perception the customer has of you, your products, and your services”!
9. When the customer returns and the product doesn’t
10. Quality is in the eyes of the beholder. And in a business environment, the beholder is always the customer or client. In other words, quality is whatever the customer says it is.
11. Suppose you were with your *soul mate*, *significant other*, *spouse* etc. and after a relationship that person looked longingly into your eyes and said “That met the requirements!” or “There were no defects there!” or “That had all the value I wanted!” or “The degree of excellence was acceptable! Wouldn’t you rather have that person look into your eyes and say “WOW!”?

While the editor of that magazine felt all the definitions were valid I would disagree that they’re even definitions! To define is “to describe exactly; to state the meaning”. Most of these definitions are subjective (expectations, perceptions, emotions, values) and therefore perceived and based on personal preference. Why even Webster’s defines quality as excellence and then defines excellence as virtue and virtue as quality, excellence and worth.

Well, what about the Quality consulting Guru’s? Surely they’ll state the meaning and describe exactly what quality is so it can be obtained and maintained. Listed below are definitions used by the some of the foremost experts in Quality past and present.

•  ”The efficient production of the quality that the market expects” (Deming)
•  ”Fitness for use“; “product performance and freedom from deficiencies” (Juran)
•  ”The total composite product and service characteristics of marketing, engineering, manufacturing, and maintenance through which the product and service in use will meet the expectations of the customer” (Felgenbaum)
• “Anything that can be improved” (Imal)
• “Meeting or exceeding customer expectations at a cost that represents value to them” (Harrington)
• “Does not impart loss to society” (Taguchi)
• “The totality of features and characteristics of a product or service that bears on its ability to satisfy a given need” (American Society for Quality Control)
•  ”Degree of excellence” (Webster’s Third New International Dictionary)

I took the liberty to bold and italicize those subjective words that render the definition useless. No wonder Quality is difficult to achieve much less maintain!

For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
Galations 6:7

The fight started out on the production floor, the manufacturing manager got so mad he put his fist through a wall after accosting my Quality Engineering manager. I’ll be the first to admit it; I started it.  But it couldn’t compare with the time I was sitting at the Number 10 across from my brand new employer Datapoint in San Antonio when a wine glass flew overhead and smashed into the plate glass mirror behind the bar.  I turned to see the director of personnel with female employees under each arm yelling at the owner that he positively was not going to throw him out of the place.  I looked at Larry, my boss and said, “What have you gotten me into.”

At a company in Arizona almost my entire quality inspection group came from the local Holiday Inn’s weekly underwear modeling show, seems my predecessor liked to frequent the place.

Doing a walk through at Compaq Computer’s brand new factory one day, I asked my Quality manager who the new inspector was.  Looking puzzled, he walked over to find out that our “new employee” had been working for the past two weeks. Apparently she just walked in off the street from the local watering hole after hearing that we needed people.

I arrived at the supplier’s facility just in time to see the daily ritual of selecting which of the wino’s lined against the wall would be used to stuff electronic components into printed circuit boards that day.

The Manufacturing Director I worked for at ITT Courier Terminal Systems suggested I follow in the footsteps of his previous Quality Manager who used to dress up as an SS Officer with hip boots and a crop to give the workers a little levity. “Relieves the stress” he said. “Everyone knows a happy worker is a productive worker”! I think he became a college professor at Arizona State soon thereafter.

Silvia was a fast-talking, street savvy statistical data clerk that didn’t have a clue how to add two and two and get four consistently. A random number generator could solve it faster.  But she was the top mans pimp and prized labor informer. So she became Quality’s Master Statistician and my responsibility to manage.  So it goes in the confessions of a Quality manager.

These are just a few of the incidents that go with 20 years experience in business. Everyone has them but it does appear, from talking to others, that a profession in the quality industry is kind of unique. It seems that the best and the worst are accentuated when you’re focused on the quality of products, services, work, decisions and relationships. People are naturally averse to being monitored but they seem to get really incensed when you’re thought to be insinuating that their ability to perform work correctly is lacking. As you might imagine it tends to generate an adversarial relationship up and down the chain of command very quickly. Overcoming that natural tendency was what I thought implementing quality was all about. After all a happy person is a productive person and quality minded one at that, Right?

“There are no accidents, just premeditated carelessness!”
Brother Dave Gardner

We are taught from a young age that we are the product of years of trial and error. And only those stronger, more observant, intelligent and lucky survive to procreate and build. We came out of the caves to hunt and gather eventually moving into production by mastering the art of farming. I’m not debating the point just building a case. This concept of trial and error is reinforced because each of us from infancy on, to some extent, learned from trial and error. Even though we were told from experienced elders to never stick a wire in an electrical socket, some of us had to test it. As if the laws of electrical current were different for us than for all preceding mankind. Our jails are full of testers. But yet again that’s another book. Anyway my point is that this historical approach results in an overall continuing attitude of “everything is trial and error.” My experience is that most companies, products, services and decisions are a result of trial and error and it continues unabated with every new product, service and employee. There are a lot of reasons for this. Most often it is centered on technology improvements and knowledge transfer issues however; it no longer needs to be this way. To explain, what if we create a parallel universe for ourselves where quality reigns and call it “EDEN”. We will have the ability to step from one universe to the other at will, let’s say 7:00am and leave no earlier than 6:00pm at least four days a week.

Since it is a foregone conclusion that EDEN will have people associated with it we won’t have to worry about creating and applying the laws of physics we’ll just borrow those that already exist in our native universe. Now that we have a duplicate to our universe what needs to change in the EDEN universe to ensure that products, services, decisions and actions are always correct?

We need to diverge for a moment and examine the importance of the underlying concept of right and wrong. You see there is another aspect to existence in our present universe that hinders our ability to produce quality. Quite a few people believe the concept of “quality” actually springs from it. It is, for lack of better words, a spiritual or moral aspect. It is the concept of conscience or the ability to understand right from wrong and the degrees thereto. Regardless, it is interesting to me that some of these rights and wrongs seem to be universal or innate to mankind’s existence. Murder, adultery, stealing, etc are pretty universal no no’s. The adherence to contracts whether in marriage or some other oath is preferred and expected. There is some part of the human psyche that understands that truthfulness is preferred over lies. Someone that always did right used to be referred to as “righteous”.

In our native universe this concept of freedom to do wrong is often referred to as “free will”. We all have the free will to do what we want but there are always limitations given the laws that govern our existence. Step off a ten story building just because you’re free to make that decision. The result is immediate banishment from this universe. Likewise in some cultures if you break moral laws, say murder, you may also be banished from the universe. Breaking moral laws that carry the known penalty of banishment for some reason don’t seem to carry the same weight or responsibility as breaking physical laws. There are always those people that will look at a fence and see restriction while others see protection. Stepping off the building is viewed as self banishment while murdering someone is viewed by some as trial and error. Lying is another example. If we define lying as a statement designed to mislead, even though it is frowned upon today, lying is pretty much an excepted practice. Over time that practice may well have the same result as murder for products, services, individuals, governments and societies. It is interesting to contemplate the effect of duration, the time taken from incident to result and what effect it has on the human psyche. I think it only logical to believe that if the duration for actions taken were immediate then wrong choices would be eliminated. Unfortunately immediacy is not always possible, after-all the situation must be investigated and the perpetrator must be caught. Then there is a trial and always a chance that some technicality will taint the evidence. So it really comes down to how much risk the perpetrator is willing to take before he acts and oddly how much risk is the employer or business owner willing to give the perpetrator (worker). For example, it just makes common sense that someone is less likely to steal items that are known to have RFID tags attached. To some extent the business owner has eliminated free will for his patrons.

So, what if we just take away free will in the EDEN universe, what results? Animals don’t have free will they have instinct that assures their survival. This is another concept hard to understand even with years of trial and error behind it. Animals are endowed with programmed actions and reactions to specific stimuli or circumstances. And it would appear that not all activities of animals are programmed as in robotics. What if we take away free will and replace it with programmed action? In actuality isn’t that exactly what all the training, seminars and webinars are trying to accomplish?

Now, just what does all of this have to do with quality? Well, in the preceding chapter we learned that quality is conformance to requirements. Conformance to requirements just means “doing it right”. If we say quality is “do it right” then the requirement is the “it”. Not conforming to the requirement would generate mistakes, faults, blunders, oversights, errors, omissions, gaffes, goofs, sins, etc. Let’s take sin for instance, it actually just means to “miss,” in the sense of missing the mark or not reaching a goal, way, or right point. This insinuates a known requirement whether physical or moral.

Therefore, if one knows how to do what is right and yet does not do it, it is a sin for him. (James 4:17)

Now the term sin would never be used in the workplace but the rest certainly are. In the EDEN universe none of these terms will exist. Why? Because the choice to do wrong, will be eliminated.

This brings up another important issue for discussion. Does it really matter whether the worker wants to do his job correctly if he has no alternative? Seems to me it will just come down to how long it takes him to perform. We will not take free will away from the EDEN universe it’s just that the available choices will already be selected and they will always be correct. The EDEN universe will have all the knowledge accumulated in the present universe to utilize and determine what is right. Therefore the EDEN universe will not have “trial and error” as its basis but wisdom. Righteousness will reign in the EDEN universe because there will only be right choices.

To demonstrate, who of us has gone to an ATM machine that’s working and not come away with the $20 bucks that we intended to get? Did it ever cross the mind that this machine is robbing us of our free will? Do we demand to have the ability to make a mistake and perhaps ruin our finances costing us time and money to resolve? No. So why do we tolerate it in other situations especially work?

Why is it that we’ll tolerate “the equivalent of 390 jumbo jets full of people… dying each year due to likely preventable, in-hospital medical errors, making this one of the leading killers in the U.S.,” said Dr. Samantha Collier, HealthGrades vice president of medical affairs.

In the EDEN universe it won’t be possible.