Get Out of Your Office!
“This is ridiculous! Why would you write such crap?” Not the response I expected after precisely documenting the desoldering process. “I wrote exactly what’s happening in the lab across the street.” The Director of Quality knocked her chair over in her rush to get to the other building, yelling into her cell phone to the Supervisor in that department for him to stop processing immediately.
The two women in charge of removing faulty components from boards that failed testing had both worked for other semiconductor companies. They applied to this company when there were openings because it changed their commute from hours to minutes. They both had years of experience. Their resumes were a dream come true to the Human Resources Department. The company felt lucky to get them. No one ever observed their work. They assumed (and you know how well that works) that they knew how to do the procedure. They did know how to do the procedure as it had always been done at the other companies. They decided between them which was the better way, unaware of recent improvements and the differences in the manufacturing at this company.
While others were trying to determine the cause of repeated failures, the cause continued without notice because “experts” were in charge of that part of the operation. I was there as a consultant and was the first person to observe this process as part of an ISO9000 documentation project. How much had it cost the company for no one to have visited this part of the operation? How much does it cost a company for the boss to walk the floor? How much does it cost a company for the boss to NOT walk the floor?
