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ATTACHMENT
2
Attachment to "The
Dilemma of Improving Quality in New Product Development" by
Larry R. Smith, Boris Zlotin, and Alla Zusman
Applying
Operators (knowledge base) for generating suggestions:
Each problem statement has been considered
according to the following criteria;
- Representing a promising direction for
innovation
- Being relevant to the project
Approximately 50 problem statements were
selected for further consideration in the environment of the Brainstorming
Process (Ideation, 1998). The following ideas were obtained as a result of
this process:
Score quality progress. When score is
visible, the top management will demand improvement and link the demand
to salary.
Quality score can make the quality
performance more objective than subjective.
Raise the salary in Quality Office.
Raise the prestige of Quality Office.
Make Quality certification a
requirement for promotion.
Make the value and cost of Quality
more visible up-front.
Priority - make Quality more of a
priority than short-term cost.
Use different kind of resources.
Use an external "critic" to
explain to management how bad current situation currently is. This will
generate more resources.
Add "fudge" or
"safety" multiplier to quality projects.
Allocate engineers by disposition/job
- use "fire-fighters" only at end of programs; use people with
"prevention" mentality up-front on programs.
Use "certified" engineers or
former quality office engineers up-front in new programs
- more than 20% of population in any
new model program.
Split team into parts - induce
friendly competition between areas to use quality and reliability
methods.
Induce friendly
"competition" between other vehicle teams.
Use quality tools to reduce cost and
improve quality at the same time
Increase rotation from Quality Office
to Product Development - but keep appropriate balance of assisting
organization with knowledge and keeping Quality group effective.
Make special
training/knowledge/software available to quality office that is useful
for managers. Make this a Quality Office perk that makes the office more
respectable.
Combine "lack of resources"
with "lack of use of Quality Tools" - you must use the Quality
tools to match your resources with the job.
Teach engineers - enable them to use
the quality methods as the way to do a good design.
Use first on external suppliers - then
migrate into company (increases reputation and confidence before
applying inside company).
Lack of resources = lack of knowledge.
Quality knowledge and skills is a resource that can influence the need
for other resources of cost and timing.
Special effort to design the system
where the sub-system elements evaluate each other and provide feedback.
Quality Department can facilitate this process - way to participate in
Product Development and gain respect.
Attach some TGRs for engineers to the
quality effort, so they will not mind the effort associated with quality
improvement (i.e. certification will result in higher salaries in the
next job, increase the value of the person with special education,
software, etc.).
Connect with what management knows.
Create a very good model so that
management can see the benefits of the solution idea. Use imaginary
story to illustrate how it would work. Thought experiment/description.
Resonate the system - have the
solution idea appear from many different initiatives, different
organizations, and different companies at the right time -reinforce the
idea as the right thing to do.
Use competing organization bosses to
out-do each other in implementation - keep informing the other boss of
competitor's progress.
Self-synchronicity, program
automatically adjusts effort based upon feedback.
Create a model of management reaction
- use it as a game to test presentation/response and refine presentation
before it is presented.
Anticipate questions and prepare
answers ahead of time.
Prepare for desired response ahead of
time by reviewing with key management people in 1/1 before the meeting.
Use something that has been tested
before in your or another industry.
Get other people in the system to
support the solution idea and be allies. Go to service, assembly, and
manufacturing ahead of time and bring their comments/support to the
meeting.
Connect this program to an initiative
existing in the organization that management wants to do.
Advertisement principle - use a
metaphor/medium that highlights the positive benefits of the solution
idea. Use a special newspaper or column in existing newspaper, Internet
news, local broadcast, publish in external magazine or conference to
demonstrate credibility, establish a "chat" room.
Use comments from respected
individuals to create excitement about the initiative.
Concentrate, focus - reduce or delay
other competitive initiatives - focus on this one now to utilize
resources.
Make it easier to use the quality
methods by making it difficult to defend design in reviews if you do not
do it. Quality Office then becomes a coach to help the engineer pass the
review. Use other departments or outside to provide the critique.
Provide a "bonus" award for a successful review. Use "Tom
Sawyer Fence" effect.
Send design team off-site ... perhaps
a supplier company that uses quality techniques - remain in residence in
the different environment until significant progress is made.
Make a portion of the environment
"unstable" to make it easier for the team to change. Find area
with new boss, recent problem, people rotation, change work time or
shift, etc. "Hawthorne effect."
Create right amount of intermediate
pressure, stress or risk to do this initiative. Introduce a special tax
for quality. Reward the discovery of a mistake before initial release of
design.
In presentation show how use of this
methodology would have prevented problems in actual situations. Use real
stories that people remember for the thought experiment.
Engineer gets complete set of
"quality credits" by implementing initiatives, then can use
this set to avoid a management presentation, get extra vacation day,
etc.
Make "game or puzzle" of
methodology and encourage engineers to learn the method by doing the
game.
Put in Network, a "quality tip of
the day" when start computers. Should be interesting to read ...
short stories, interesting pictures, etc.
Bundle changes and introduce a group
of them at one time.
"Scare" the top management
to force them to take immediate actions.
Find a "young start" in the
organization, convince them to make a long-term commitment.
Leverage your mission, values and
guiding principles.
Show some short term successes.
Solve painful problem and show the
real saving.
Introduce quality approach into cost
reduction and time-to market reduction programs.
Concern: Quality approach might not be
credited in the case of success.
Validation of design via failure
prediction session with following test that could prove the tools and
processes effectiveness.
Concern: People rotation causes loss
of knowledge and accountability.
Get top management of other companies
to persuade.
Get top management to talk to
customers.
Invite quality guru to talk to
management.
Establish a forum for frequent
communication to ensure acceptance.
Visualization of the concept benefits
and intermediate results.
Accountable metrics, process measures,
etc.
Good process measures for engineers to
monitor the results.
Make management a feature speaker at a
quality conference.
Special event at a professional
society for top management to discuss quality issues.
Apply for prestigious quality awards:
- Apply for the Malcolm Baldrige
Quality award.
- Apply for Deming prize
Address shareholders.
Use an audit process to foster sharing
across teams.
Foster team sharing of lessons learned
in corporate memory.
Add "marketing invention" to
the "technical invention".
Review psychology training for
engineers; how to concentrate on the problem.
Use as much as possible ready-made and
approved things (already tested).
List of questions a person should
answer (check sheet) to eliminate typical mistakes.
Use professional interview and
psychology interview to build teams.
Build P-D-C-A loops into the process.
Make all processes without process
check, then use the best professional to check at key milestones.
Special "fresh eyes" review
procedure for process.
Make customers part of the design
team.
Exclude elements (eliminate the need
for an element):
- Example: for Halloween have a
contest for the most weird idea
- Add a Quality Office person to
participate in design teams; ask questions and share ideas between
teams.
- Cross-reference by part, by
function, by problem, in the knowledge database.
Building bi- and poly-systems.
- Utilize independent
partner/platform to conduct a parallel design and compare to
eliminate mistakes and improve timing.
"Towing" bisystem.
- "Towing" system –
existing methods of Quality assurance. It is recommended to
introduce new elements into them. Build a picture of the future
system we would like to have and develop a smooth transition path.
- Another way is to use existing
computer tools as a "towing" system.
Alternative bisystem.
Combine design and testing systems.
Test engineers should be able to conduct a "thought" project
testing (following specific rules developed for that purpose) and then
run real tests. Testers’ experience together with the knowledge of
Anticipatory Failure Determination methods could be very useful for
timely discovery of possible mistakes.
Symbiotic bisystem.
Designer and manufacturing personnel
could serve as elements of a symbiotic system. Similar process is used
in DFMEA. The process could be enforced if all parties were encouraged
to test the project from various points of view than from their
positions only.
Decrease the degree of stability.
Transform an object from stationary to movable.
Design stability is provided by a
stable design team. Usually, one individual starts the project and leads
it to the end. However, it has a side effect: stable (the same type of)
mistakes (psychological inertia prevents a person that made a mistake
from revealing it). A design team’s stability may be purposefully
reduced via intentional change of leadership on different project
stages. For example, switch two project leaders between projects. They
should have similar working experience to easily transfer the knowledge
about their projects. At the same time, it is much easier to identify
mistakes of each other.
Revealing
and analyzing similar projects in other areas
The following systems have been identified
as relevant:
- Ideal manufacturing process
- Ideal software development
The following ideas developed in the areas
mentioned above which could be applied:
From manufacturing:
- Develop clear requirements and an
appropriate process check.
- Involve every participating individual
in the process check. In particular, each individual responsible for
an operation in a chain at the same time is checking if the previous
operation was performed right. Every one should immediately report a
problem in case of a mistake revealed and even be allowed to stop the
manufacturing process.
- Coordinate work of different departments
and people. Quality is a result of common efforts, therefore effective
contacts between people and departments should be established. It is
very important to overcome traditional isolation and attempts to
"point fingers" to outsiders.
- Develop a clear understanding that it is
a customer who pays our bills and make it as an element of the
corporate culture.
In software development, the approach has
been working since 1960s. It was started by Turing and Deikstra. Ideal
software development was based on ideas of structural programming, that
is, development of a complete set of structural elements and algorithms,
and connecting them into an integrated structure. Further development of
ideal programming was based on developing mathematical models of data
structures and algorithms of their transformations. Later, the number of
mistakes dramatically reduced due to implementation of Object Oriented
Design, that is, building a program from a set of readily available
objects and modifiable supplements. Theoretically, today it is possible to
develop ideal programs however; they are not going to be optimal from the
memory, speed and other computer resources utilization. Often, mistakes
appear because of numerous changes to already done programs as a result of
trying to fix initially wrong design. To reduce number of mistakes,
various methods are utilized; some of them could be applied to design
process as well, for example:
- Utilization of specialized software
monitoring the process, documenting steps.
- Utilization of specific software
intended to automatically recognize the most frequent typical
mistakes.
- Utilization of artificial models for
testing. Use of soft (mental) tests rather than real (hardware)
testing.
- Utilization of special software tool
kits (like Visual Basic) for fast software prototyping.
- Introducing standard procedures for
customers’ satisfaction surveys and testing allowing data
accumulation and transfer in convenient and easy-to-operate format.
- Unit-by-unit testing starts from the
beginning of the project rather than wait until the project is
completed.
- Implementation of specific protection
unit into the program capable to quickly identify a mistake and
promptly prevent from its harmful consequences.
- Introducing new methods via quickly
evolving software to dramatically change methods of work without
disturbing the structure of social relationships and to avoid costly
re-training.
In general, a practical approach to
mistakes is taken including understanding of inevitability of mistakes in
the process of software development, therefore to focus on their
prevention, prompt discovery and correction.
Revealing
the main trends in design methods evolution
Design is a specific activity directed to
creation of new products, processes, services, etc. or their essential
enhancement. It involves identification of the main function(s) of the
system under development and methods of their realization. Design includes
two interconnected processes:
- Thinking about the future system
(designer’s thinking)
- Development of description of the system
allowing system reproduction (drawings, models, text documents, etc.)
Looking back on the history of technology
one can see that in the beginning of the technological era the most
important thing was an idea that people were trying to realize without any
intermediate steps. For example, a builder was building a house or a small
bridge without drawings introducing changes to the real object.
Next, various means of a project
documentation and visualization were introduced:
- Modeling (a master was building and
presenting to a customer a model of a church, or a ship)
- Making sketches (usually 3D) instead of
models
- Technical drawing with various views,
cross sections, etc, completed according to specific rules.
Utilization of special equipment to facilitate the process (drafts
desks, tools, etc.)
- Computerization of drawings (CAD/CAM,
PRO-Engineer, etc.)
In general, evolution of design thinking is
far behind the evolution of design tools. In fact, for a long period there
was no attention to thinking process and designers have been taught just
to follow more experienced colleagues. The following improvements however,
have been made:
- To enhance design process (in
particular, reduction of mistakes), various standard parts, units,
etc. have been developed and implemented. That has moved design work
to the next level, that is, combination of standard parts and units
into required systems.
- Introducing rules in drawing process
allowed reducing number of mistakes and made the process check easier.
- In the middle of our century, first
specific techniques helping perform some of the design steps and solve
typical design problems emerged, such as brainstorming, QE, VE, QFD,
DFMA, etc. TRIZ is one of them, too. Some of these techniques have
software support. The main problem on this stage is that although
techniques mentioned above are rather effective for specific steps,
however an attempt to combine them all together make the design
process too complicated and designers are reluctant to use them at all
or use in inefficient way.
Design process improvement evolved in
parallel to the evolution of other organizational elements and management
theory. Number of design departments, designers’ specialization and
level of hierarchy have been growing constantly. Together with some
limited improvement it resulted in significant increase in project time
and number of mistakes. Two reasons could be responsible for that:
- Non-linear growth in efforts required
improving mature systems that have practically exhausted resources of
growth (Maturity stage on the S-curve):
- Bureaucratization
Typical drawbacks of traditional
designer’s approach and thinking process:
- Psychological inertia, pressure of
traditional assumption without questioning them
- Fear of new ideas, desire to stay with
traditional proven solutions
- Fast deactivation of brain in addressing
creative problems
- Focusing on main functions and elements
with insufficient attention to auxiliary functions and system elements
- Focusing on performance rather than
addressing potential harmful (side) effects
- Lack of understanding of evolutionary
nature of technology and attempts to move against strong trends of
evolution
- Lack of understanding of the importance
of the "dimensional" and systemic factors, that is,
potential emergence of undesired effects caused by changing system
dimensions an /or by integration of parts into the system
- Attempts to solve a problem in a given
(in most cases accidental) statement without proper understanding the
problem nature
- Fear of contradictions
- Fear to make a mistake, seeking
overprotection
Conclusions
- Existing design thinking is far behind
relative to design means.
- Spontaneously developed culture of
design has many drawbacks and cannot satisfy requirements of today's
design
- The next step in design evolution
including cultural, technical and organizational issues has to be made
as follow:
- Introduce an integrated process and
philosophy of design based on identifying its main steps and formulate
main ideas introducing a creative approach into each step (like Robust
Engineering Process).
- Develop an organizational culture and
structure supporting the ideal process.
- Develop an integrated computer aided
process addressing all process steps.
Formulating
contradictions and potential ways for their resolution
The main contradiction in the
evolution of design methods could be formulated as follow:
Improvement of design means (complex
drawings, various CAD systems, etc.) negatively impacts creative thinking
process. For example, we found out that creative output of a brainstorming
group working with drawings 3-5 times lower than working with real
objects. Also, it was discovered that utilization of computerized design
techniques makes the situation with creativity even worse because
operating computer programs is very destructive for thinking process.
This contradiction may be resolved by
development of software that supports all types of activities, that is,
drawing and thinking.
Contradiction related to quality:
Usually, quality and cost of products and
processes are in contradiction, that is, quality enhancement leads to
increase in cost, while cost reduction deteriorates quality. Cost/quality
relationship strongly depends on the company technological and
organizational culture and is not necessarily sharp in some industries.
However, is very painful in mature industries dealing with high volume
production.
This contradiction may be (at least
partially) resolved by coming up with inventions capable simultaneously
increase quality and reduce cost, for example come up with less parts,
operations, etc.
Contradiction related to innovations
Inventions (innovations) break the vicious
circle of contradiction and allow improving both quality and cost.
However, it is very difficult to rely on inventions, as they cannot be
controlled, planned, or ordered. A mismatch between well-planned design
process and non-predictable inventions is a very serious contradiction in
evolution of technology and human life in general.
This contradiction may be resolved via
utilization of systematic innovation based on TRIZ that allows obtaining
inventions where and when they are needed.
Contradictions in testing new systems
- Testing is necessary to unveil mistakes
and drawbacks, however it increases cost and takes time.
Possible resolution to this
contradiction – mental tests (simple, quick, reliable, and
inexpensive).
- Test has to be extensive to give all
answers and not to be to avoid high cost.
Possible resolution in developing new
testing procedures utilizing a knowledge base.
- It is easy to prevent and/or fix
problems in the start of a project, however, at that time people are
usually are not aware of potential problems. Problems accumulate to
the end of the project but now it is to expensive to handle them
Possible resolution in applying
Anticipatory Failure Determination process (Ideation, 1998) at a very
early stage to predict potential failures.
Psychological (people related)
contradictions
- An individual has to think positively
and be very confident in his/her decisions to make a good design.
However, he/she has to be capable to be a critique mode of mind to
look for mistakes, drawbacks, week sides, etc. Normally it is very
uncomfortable to look for mistakes in your own design.
Resolution of this contradiction is in
separating idea generation and evaluation steps in time or between
different individuals.
- An individual has to be focused on
something (like the main system function) to make it good. However,
many other issues have to be considered as well: reliability, quality,
manufacturability, cost, compatibility, convenience, esthetics, etc.
Potential resolution – iterative work
with concentration on one issue at the time followed by integration.
Still, it is complicated, requires systemic vision.
- Creativity is not in a good relationship
with certainty. To unleash natural creativity, it is recommended to
abandon precise terminology, use vague statements, which is helpful
for drawing analogies. At the same time, it is very important to be
very accurate and certain to make a good design. It is difficult and
psychologically uncomfortable to combine these two mutually exclusive
capabilities.
Resolution of this contradiction is in
separating processes in time or between different individuals.
- For American and European culture, an
individual feels very comfortable when he/she is a "hero"
(fire fighter) because of finding a solution to the already recognized
and painful problem. On the contrary, it is very uncomfortable to be a
bad news messenger, that is, trying to uncover potential problems (be
negative).
Resolution of this conflict may be in
arranging special sessions when only negative statements are appreciated.
Organizational contradictions
- Substantial reduction of defects will be
profitable for the company as it reduces cost of design, warranty
costs, increases sales, etc. However, it may be painful for various
categories of people, for example:
- Warranty department: it will shrink
- Engineering departments – less
engineers will be required
- Car service people – sales will drop
- Sales – less spare parts will be
consumed
Resolution – changing the organizational
structure parts supply policy, reward system, etc.
- Once there is a "fire" in the
company, all limitations are lifted, all resources are available to
fight it. However, a small fraction of these resources could be enough
to prevent the fire but usually they are not allocated for this
purpose.
Potential resolution – in changing
organizational culture or in "arranging fires" like special
anti-defect sessions in the process.
Integrating
preliminary ideas into concepts
The main target of integration process is
building the concept of "Future Design".
Basic culture and principles of
preparing people to adopt Future Design
The following issues should be addressed to
establish the basic culture and principles of preparing people to adopt
Future Design:
- Know and understand design stages and
main requirements to each stage.
- Understand that technological evolution
follows pre-determined certain patterns, know how to use
patterns/lines of technological evolution and market evolution to
develop high value products.
- Understand mechanisms of psychological
inertia and know how to control creative activity to avoid brain
deactivation. Be able to psychologically concentrate on a problem.
- Eliminate fear of contradictions,
understand their nature and know how to handle them.
- Understand that ideas shouldn’t be
rejected because of side effects or secondary problems, know how to
address secondary problems.
- Know how to replace an unsolvable
problem with another one that is easier to address and provides
desired results (in a different way).
- Know how to unveil mistakes ahead of
time and efficiently fix them.
- Know and utilize on each design stage a
standard set of universal creative techniques such as controlling
psychological inertia, functional problem description, simple models
and their transformations, utilization of resources to approach
ideality, working with contradictions, universal operators, main
patterns of evolution, etc.
Organizational aspects
The following issues relate to the
organizational processes that could eliminate (or dramatically reduce)
number of design iterations:
- Introducing the following three
sub-steps on most of design stages:
- Creation
- Testing
- Refining
Creation
The main purpose of this sub-step is to
find effective design ideas and elements with less attention to
potential drawbacks or possible mistakes.
Testing
Utilizing Anticipatory Failure Design (AFD)
approach, unveil all drawbacks and potential problems (it is very
important that result of this sub-step would not affect reputation of
individuals participating in creation stage, their work should be
evaluated based on how promising ideas obtained).
Refining
During this sub-step all concerns and
recognized secondary problems should be addressed
- Combination of two types of work on each
stage:
- Individual work (involved
utilization of computer tools)
- Team work (brainstorming procedure
supported by the software could be utilized).
- Utilization of various internal and
external resources to improve testing as follow:
- Use designers involved in
development of one unit to test other designer’s work
- Use designers involved in similar
unit development from another platform for testing
- Use specialists from testing
departments ("fire fighters") to test design
- Use "fresh brain" (for
example, people from one department to help test another
department's products)
- Divide a team into two and have a
contest in effectiveness of unveiling mistakes
- Use people with natural
"preventive" mentality, psychologically comfortable with
AFD approach
- Use trained AFD specialists to
facilitate AFD sessions
- Mobilize people intellectual
resources via reward system encouraging "critique view"
and creative approach to eliminating unveiled drawbacks
- Use parallel design for the most
important subsystems. In normal situations, it causes unnecessary
duplication and fighting. However, with utilization of special
ITRIZ technique called "Hybridization of alternative
systems" and providing combination of advantages and
diminishing drawbacks may produce an additional useful effect.
- Introduce a special step in design
process (or test) for quick and effective mental or limited real
testing after pre-determined milestones.
Basic techniques and tools for Future
Design
- There is no doubt that the Future Design
is going to be software based including advanced versions of existing
software like CAD CAM or PRO Engineer. However, besides this tools
supporting project management and documentation, other special
software should be included. Software system providing support to
creative activity and data transfer between departments.
- Psychological management during solving
creative tasks
- System and problem analysis (Knowledge
Wizard, Problem Formulation and Failure Analysis)
- New creative concepts generation support
(New system synthesis, Directed Evolution)
- Generation of creative solution in the
design process (System’s improvement and problem solving, Value
Quality Analysis)
- Prediction and prevention of failures
and other undesirable effects (AFD)
- Creative testing
- Bank of typical problems and solutions
(specialized in the area knowledge base including potential problems
and proven effective solutions to them)
- Specialized search engine based on
syntax’s analysis capable to effectively provide with necessary
innovation information
On a way to the Future Design
Today, we have enough elements in place
allowing immediate start implementation of the Future Design, including:
- Detailed description of design stages
and understanding of the connection between design and Quality
approach
- Methods of creative problem solving
- Methods of unveiling, preventing and
eliminating design mistakes
Analysis of implementation of useful
initiatives in various companies helps understanding of the main reasons
for unsuccessful results as follows:
- Excessive level of an initiative’s
novelty disturbing a company culture and traditions
- Excessive pushing an initiative through
creating high resistance of individuals and organizations
- Competition with other initiatives
promoted within the company causing resources get scattered between
various campaigns
- Initiative disturbs the position of
certain departments or individuals causing their resistance or even
counteraction
- Top management doesn’t support the
initiative
- Middle management and employees don’t
support (don’t understand their benefits) of the initiative
implementation
- Initiative does not meet expectations
for the following reasons:
- It is not effective enough
- It is effective, however unrealistic
promises have been made that couldn’t be met
- It gives short-term benefits only
and damaging in a long term aspect
- It is beneficial in long term only
- It causes unexpected undesirable
effects shortly after implementation
To prevent problems described above, the
following could be done:
- Detailed preparation, with the use of
creative approach and participation of the best specialists from
various departments
- Utilization of AFD to predict and
prevent undesirable effects that could emerge with the time
Modeling the situation unveiling
potential positive and negative reaction of various groups.
- Using games to develop right answers to
future questions
- Blending a new initiative into others
already planned and/or under implementation to match them and even
enforce via integration. Cancel the ones that do not match or scatter
the efforts
- Attract natural alliances, passivate
natural rivals, be able to show how everyone can benefit (it is not an
easy task and requires creative solutions, however, it is important to
do)
- Mask the novelty of an initiative via
blending it in with others that have been already tested and proved
useful
- Use information about initiatives
implemented by competitors to prove that approach is useful
- Test an initiative in selected
departments first. The best candidates could be the ones that are
already changing (because of a new boss, beginning of a large project,
recent recall problem, people rotation, "Hawthorne effect",
etc.
- Test an initiative with a supplier
- Use effective advertisement agencies’
methods to promote initiatives.
Gaining the support of the top
management
The following considerations may help
achieve the top management support:
- Unveil the danger(s) of existing
situation for the top management. For that, one has to make a hidden
danger visible
- Conduct (jointly with respectable
specialists) an AFD of design system to unveil problems and dangers.
- Develop a case study using a situation
that has already proved to be dangerous and "playing it
backward" showing how AFD could predict and prevent it.
- Conduct an AFD session of a real
completed design ready for testing. All potential problems unveiled
during this session could be validated during following up testing.
- Quality projects usually are associated
with expenses that may not be recoverable from the top management
point of view. Combining quality enhancement with the cost and/or
time-to-market reduction may change this attitude.
- Find a way to directly address
shareholders to convince them to entertain long-term initiatives.
- Use professional magazines respectable
by the top management to discuss the existing design system’s
drawbacks.
Gaining the support of the middle
management and employees’ cooperation
On this level, the most important is to
elevate the Quality Office prestige to a higher level as follow:
- Introduce Quality certification for
managers and employees as a necessary element to be promoted.
- Rotate future project managers through
Quality Office and design departments.
- Pay the most attention to young
designers that will use quality education to be promoted.
- Establish quality reward system
- Put Quality tip of the day into
everyone’s computer
- Increase salaries for Quality people
Anticipatory
Failure Determination
The purpose of Anticipatory Failure
Determination (AFD) is to help identify and understand the underlying
causes of a system's drawbacks. Frequently, we observe negative effects
within a system but do not recognize their root cause(s). At other times,
until shortcomings manifest themselves in a product while in use, they are
not recognized at all. By gaining an early fundamental understanding, one
can then often eliminate the drawback at its cause, rather than
compensating for its negative effect(s). Eliminating a problem at its
root, when possible, is always most advantageous.
AFD consists of two overall stages. In the
first stage the original problem statement is transformed by re-stating
the question(s) regarding the failure:
|
Original question:
|
Substitute
question:
|
| 1. Why did
the failure occur? |
How can we
create this failure? |
| 2. What
failures may occur in the system? |
How can we
damage the system? or:
How can we induce the most dangerous
undesirable phenomena?
|
The inventive power of the methodology can
now be used to answer the newly formulated, "pro-active"
questions.
The second stage of AFD helps tackle the
problems related to preventing the anticipated drawback(s). This is also
accomplished with the help of the Ideation Methodology.
AFD offers two approaches:
AFD-1: Investigation: Determination
of potential causes of a system failure
AFD-2: Forecasting: Determination of
potential failures associated with a system
Ideation
Brainstorming
Ideation Brainstorming is a modification of
traditional brainstorming based on utilization of TRIZSoft™ to support
team facilitation process. It includes the following steps:
Preparation to team work session,
including:
- Knowledge mapping the problem
- Automatic formulation of problem
statements and selection the ones for the team work session
- Selection of Operators for team work
session
Team work session, including
two stages:
- Idea generation stage
- Evaluation stage
Idea generation stage
includes generating ideas for selected problem statements based on
selected Operators. The following rules should apply:
- Everybody should be able to see the
computer screen
- Facilitator is guiding team through
problem statements and Operators
- Facilitator’s assistant documents all
suggestions, questions in the way visible to all team members
- Working on one problem statement should
take in average from 5 to 15 min.
- Working with one Operators should take
no more than 3-5 min.
- Work with a specific problem statement
or Operators stops if no more new ideas are generated in 1-2 min.
- All critique is forbidden during this
session
Evaluation stage follows the
idea generation stage to provide preliminary evaluation of ideas,
unveiling and document secondary problems. During this stage, the
following rules should apply:
- Utilization of specific questions
developed (embedded in the IWB software)
- Limit 5 to 10 min for the session
- Working with the next problem
- If an idea is very valuable, it is
possible to move to solving secondary problem(s)
When teamwork session is finished,
facilitator and his/her assistant organize the results of the session,
build if necessary new knowledge maps and formulate secondary problems (if
any). All suggestions and problems are presented to the next teamwork
session.
Note:
Unlike the traditional brainstorming
session when the fantasy of the team members is quickly exhausted and
therefore the productive time is not more than 1-1.5 hour, Ideation
brainstorming may long 3-5 hours with 10 min. break every hour. 10-15
serious problems may be considered during this time.
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