A productivity improvement program for the Department of Correctional Health Services of the Justice and Law Enforcement Agency of a county in the western United States required ten months and two full-time consulting staff.

As with the Health Services Agency program, two goals were established for this program:  the first, a commitment to a participative approach to productivity improve­ment; the second, to train Organizational Development staff.

 Three individuals from the Office of Organizational Development were selected to participate on this project.  This group received extensive training in the techniques mentioned above.  Also receiving training was the management team from each of the areas within the Department of Correctional Health Services.  Focus groups were established in each of sixteen project areas to develop and implement process improvements and organizational changes.

Department Background

 1.         Correctional Health Services provides medical and psychiatric services at eleven sites within the County jail system.  This includes five outpatient medical clinics serving the adult population, two outpatient medical clinics serving the juvenile population, a twenty-three bed infirmary for intermediate care, two sixty-bed inpatient psychiatric units, and an intake area to assess arrestees’ medical condition before they are accepted into the jail system.  CHS also operates a dental clinic, a pharmacy to distribute medications throughout the jail system, and a radiology room for taking and developing x-rays.

2.         Nine of the eleven sites operate twenty-four hours per day, seven days per week.  The two juvenile sites operate sixteen hours per day, seven days per week.

3.         The department operates with a $12,000,000 budget and approxi­mately 190 permanent and contract employees.  Slightly more than half of the employees are registered nurses and licensed practical nurses.  The remainder of the employees include contract medical doctors and physician’s assistants, psychia­trists, psychologists, counselors, pharmacists and pharmacy technicians, dental assistants, and support staff.

4.         The County’s Correctional Health Services is one of the largest accredited correctional health care settings in the country. 

Project Overview

In each of the sixteen project areas, the following methodology was followed:

1.         All work processes were flow-charted and, where appropriate, mapped.

2.         All essential tasks performed by area staff were identified and 1) observed to establish the time required to complete the task and 2) monitored by area staff to establish the number of occurrences during a representative period of time.

3.         Project staff developed tables to correlate the number of staff required with anticipated measurable work volumes and reviewed task assignments to balance workloads.

4.         The process flow charts and process maps were compared with the task lists and were reviewed with area staff and supervi­sion.  Work simplification and methods and systems analysis was applied to all essential work and numerous recommendations were presented and implemented to improve productivity and service levels.  When appropriate, staffing tables were modified to reflect the new work requirements.

5.         Simple reporting systems were installed to record accomplish­ment and balance staff based on actual workloads.

Throughout the department, project staff worked with area supervi­sion and management to analyze processes which crossed area boundaries and to assess organizational structure and supervisory span of control.

Project staff identified and scrutinized all activities and processes in each area to necessity, time requirements, and frequencies.  The development of Key Volume Indicators provided management with tools to staff based on measurable work volumes for all major process­es.  The result was a more efficient and produc­tive department through slimming of staffing levels and simplifica­tion of processes.  In addition, CHS added nurse recruiter and training facilitator functions without hiring or additional expenditure.

Focus groups and project staff uncovered numerous organizational change opportunities which improved accountability, utilization of non-supervisory resources, and supervisory span of control.  Nine Nurse Manager positions were consolidated into four Nurse Manager positions, two Shift Supervisor positions, and two Staffing Coordinator positions.  Administration positions were redefined to clearly place responsibility for Medical Cost Containment, Quality Control, Education and Training, Procurement, and Recruiting.  The addition of a full-time Recruiting position was expected to reduce the historic reliance on nurse registry positions and its related costs. 

Project Results

1.         Task assignments were shifted to balance work loads and reduce staff (see charts following).

2.         Re-engineered processes reduced cycle times and redundancy and improved service levels.

3.         A staffing model based on measurable work volumes allowed better management control over staffing needs and allowed reduced use of registry nurses.

4.         Initiation of utilization review reduced county costs for laboratory and hospital services. 

In the words of the then-Acting Director of Correctional Health Services: 

            “In looking back over the project, the features that stand out and also addressed my concerns were the attention to process detail, the organizational change recommendations, and finally, the relating of task time to workload determiners – all of this leading to a more efficient and productive department through slimming our staffing levels.  We even added functions that were not being performed, but were vital to our future such as nursing recruitment and a training facilitator. 

            The subject of re-engineering typified this project and extended from re-identifying the major workload “driver” from encounters to sick calls, through balancing our mix of LPN’s and RN’s per shift, to studying medical and psych provider needs, to finally recommending supervisory presence on second and third shifts.”

The subject facility is one of the largest manufacturing or processing facilities under one roof in the world.  Its staff of nearly two thousand people operate some of the most highly-automated and computer-integrated equipment in the world on two million square feet (roughly forty-six acres) of floor space under one twenty-seven acre roof. Its annual output represents one-fifth of the total annual domestic cigarette output. It processes over 800,000 pounds of tobacco daily. 

Virtually every step in the processing is computerized for maximum precision in process control and product quality assurance. Except for quality sampling, no human hands touch the tobacco. The degree of automation presented numerous challenges in training the floor supervisors and in the design of the managing systems. The consulting project began as construction was ending and continued through the completion of the start-up phase to the beginning of full, steady-state operation.

Within the scope of the project were the following major objec­tives: 

• To develop and install the methods, procedures, and managing techniques necessary for achieving high effi­ciency, quality, and output from this “state-of-the-art” facility; and
• To refine the traditional organizational duties and responsibilities as well as the staffing levels of all plant personnel in order to improve utilization and productivity of these resources.

 The two-year involvement was separated into two distinct projects:  Production/Maintenance and Quality Assurance. Each of the objectives was specifically addressed in each project area. The resulting “product” acted as a prototype for the management techniques and organizational structure for the remainder of the client’s manufacturing organization. 

 Efficiency and Quality

 In both of the project areas, the following efficiency and quality elements were addressed: 

•             operating procedures
•             skills training
•             problem solving techniques
•             management control
•             performance measurement

Procedures for how to keep each piece of equipment clean, and for when to clean it were developed and implemented. On-the-floor training in the evaluation of cleaning effectiveness for all levels of plant supervision and management was conducted. Random audits of cleaning effectiveness were installed. Cleaning was stressed early because of its perceived impact on equipment longevity and performance in addition to reasons of basic sanitation. 

Because almost every piece of equipment in the facility was new to every operator and mechanic working there, on-the-floor skills training programs were developed. These programs dealt with real-time evaluation of the extensive on-line diagnostics available to the production staff. The skills training ultimately led to the development of a prioritized system of problem solving. 

The standard collection of efficiency and production data was enlarged to include various reject and downtime data. This data was summarized for various levels of management in both the Production and Maintenance arenas for reasons which included not only operator and mechanic performance evaluations but also preventive and predictive maintenance. This data collection became essentially fully-automated by the conclusion of the start-up phase. 

The combination of prioritized problem solving and automated data collection led to the concept of an on-line, real-time system of diagnostics for production and maintenance personnel to use in managing the production equipment. This system, which combines statistical process control and artificial intelligence, has resulted in improved efficiency and effectiveness at troubleshoot­ing and in the ability to anticipate mechanical problems rather than waiting for them to occur. This, in turn, has resulted in an increase in net production of over ten percent over the projected plant production levels. 

Quality Assurance

Within the Quality Assurance area, while the optimization of all QA resources was the charter, the transition of the organization’s orientation from a “quality control” role to one of actual quality assurance was the goal. Early in the involvement with Quality Assurance, it became obvious that the Quality Assurance function was “trying to inspect quality into the product” which is clearly impossible. Rather than random sampling, the department was using systematic sampling. Sample sizes were so small that statistical confidence in the reported results was negligible. Inspectors were looking for over one hundred defects within each pack of ciga­rettes, most of which had nothing to do with the consumer’s perceptions of quality as indicated by a combination of consumer panels and customer complaint data. 

The specific objectives of the Quality Assurance part of the project were as follows: 

• To develop a cost effective Quality Assurance program with both short and long term goals.
• To define the functional roles within the plant organiza­tion and create the teamwork essential for a good Quality Assurance program.
• To improve the product sampling validity to achieve acceptable and reasonable confidence levels.
• To implement control procedures that impact and reduce internal costs associated with defects.
• To reduce the cost of in-plant laboratory testing.
• To redirect the efforts of some Quality Assurance resources into areas where cost/quality ratios will be more productive.

As part of this resource optimization effort, the team of client and consulting personnel set out to define the role of Quality Assurance at the plant level and the role of each functional area with respect to quality. A task force was assembled to involve the following functional areas: 

•             Production;
•             Quality Assurance;
•             Product/Process Control Engineering; and
•             Plant Production Engineering (Maintenance). 

The task force process prompted each member to reevaluate the duties and inter-relationships of each of the functional areas in general. Once these duties and inter-relationships were defined, the task force examined and redefined the required activities of the quality control/assurance process at the plant level, including the identification of the functional area which would be responsi­ble for each activity. All recommendations were approved by plant and company management. 

As part of the effort to improve the product sampling validity to achieve acceptable and reasonable confidence levels, an appropriate scenario was developed by which Production could control the visual defects and Quality Assurance could provide a statistically-based estimate of the quality level of the out-going product. The objective was to make the program more consistent, more relevant to customer complaints, and more statistically based. This required fewer defects, a randomized sequence for sampling, and larger volumes of product than had been used in previous inspection programs. 

The first task was to reduce the number of defects checked to a number which included only those which were truly related to product quality. This, as expected, turned out to be more of a political issue than anything else. The standard inspection categories and the customer complaint items were evaluated to provide the framework for determining which attributes of the final product were significant in nature and which were inconsequential. While most people involved in the decision could agree that fewer than thirty defects could actually be associated with perceived product quality, many of those same people felt that the other defects should be checked if only for historical reasons. 

Ultimately, the deciding factor was practical. It was proven to the upper-management task force charged with this issue that, in order to inspect enough product to provide the desired high degree of confidence in the results, maintenance of the existing number of defects would require a seven-fold increase in inspection person­nel. Agreement was ultimately reached on twenty-seven defect categories. 

Given the new twenty-seven defect categories, the responsibilities and mechanisms for the control and audit of these attributes needed re-alignment. This, in turn, required a re-thinking of the approach to detecting out-of-specification product. In the past, the onus for identifying undesirable product rested with Quality Assurance; in effect, “if QA didn’t catch any bad product, then Production didn’t make any bad product.” This attitude is both inappropriate and costly in today’s highly competitive environment where market-share and competitive pressures must be addressed day to day. To this end, the emphasis shifted to making the product correctly rather than on the ill-founded assumption that Quality Assurance would or could screen out undesirable product after it had been made. 

The next task was to transfer the control function from the Quality Assurance area to the Production personnel. Equipment operators and their immediate supervision were given hands-on training in how to inspect for the drastically-reduced number of defects. Plans were also developed, and later implemented, to use optical sensors to perform many of the actual inspections. This ultimately led to the implementation of a random inspection of proper sensor functioning rather than the more labor-intensive manual inspection of product for most of the defects. 

Reporting tools were designed around the management structure so that production managers could see those items that related specifically to their area(s) in micro terms and upper management could view more concentrated forms of information to allow them to take a macro view of operations. The reports allowed for the identification of trends and facilitated the determination of any correlation with customer complaints. 

Once the control baton was successfully passed to Production and Maintenance (for the inspection of the sensors), Quality Assurance could concentrate on taking larger random samples of product. A sampling plan was developed to accommodate various staffing and production levels. Once implemented, this procedure yielded higher confidence levels in the reported out-going product quality that were then reported together on a shift, daily, weekly, and monthly basis by production unit and by brand. 

Staffing/Organization

As mentioned earlier, the new, highly automated environment required new ways of viewing the operation and management of the facility, and presented opportunities to staff the facility more efficiently and effectively than had previously been done.

 The elements which were addressed within the staffing/­organizational aspects are as follows: 

• Task Lists:  activities, frequencies, times required, criticality, and degree of difficulty;
• Degree of Human Resource Utilization; and
• Potential for revisions to staffing/organizational structure.

Within each Production and Maintenance area, every task for every hourly worker was identified. Each task was then broken down into the specific activities within that task, the frequency (hourly, each shift, daily, etc.) of the task, the amount of time required to perform the task, the relative importance of the task, and the relative amount of skill required to perform the task. These task lists were then used to update the various skills training programs and to more clearly define individual responsibilities.

While developing the task lists, preventive and predictive maintenance procedures and responsibilities were updated. These task lists also served as a basis for the development of trouble-shooting guides for Maintenance and Production personnel. 

The task database ultimately included over two thousand activities to be performed. These included routine operational and preventive maintenance tasks as well as troubleshooting procedures. The process of compiling this database resulted in the identification of duplication of responsibility, equipment errors, and various omissions. It also provided one standardized format rather than the collection of formats which had been assembled over the years.

Ten different staffing options were developed from the task analysis. Each option represented various combinations of the following: 

• combinations of operator and mechanic tasks
• reduction of staffing levels for various positions
• transfer of organizational responsibility between Production and Maintenance and/or Quality Assurance

One option was chosen which resulted in the elimination of seventy Production positions, sixty-six Maintenance positions, and sixty-two Quality Assurance positions from the total payroll of almost two thousand hourly and supervisory personnel. These positions were cut through a combination of attrition and early retirement incentives. Total annualized savings exceeded eight million dollars. Where possible these staffing configurations were implemented in the client’s other facilities for additional labor savings in excess of five million dollars.

 Summary of Project Results

• Staffing levels within all areas were determined with the direct involvement of plant management and departmental supervision; changes from existing staffing levels were implemented.
• Potential capital expense items were evaluated with respect to their net benefit and impact on process capabilities. One such evaluation forestalled the purchase of seventy-two $700,000 pieces of equipment.
• Organizational roles were defined or re-defined to provide a logical basis for departmental accountabilities.
• Procedures were established or modified to address identified needs that were either not being met or were not being met adequately.
• Work flows were evaluated to minimize bottlenecks and unneces­sary handling of materials.
• Management control and reporting systems were designed or updated to accommodate the specific challenges and capabili­ties of the “state-of-the-art” facility and equipment.
• Supervisors and managers were trained, in actual situations, in the use of the tools at their disposal for analysis of correctable problems and in follow-up for control and to stimulate horizontal and vertical communication.
• A cultural change was begun whereby a continual examination of procedures, processes, and accountabilities could occur. Barriers began to be viewed, not as roadblocks, but rather as items to be overcome in the improvement process.

The client is one of the largest textile manufacturing organiza­tions in the United States. Their division outside Charlotte, North Carolina is one of the four largest thread manufacturing facilities in the United States. For a number of years, the textile industry in the United States has faced increasing pressure from foreign competition. The basis of this competition lies not just in price but in perceived quality. The division president, new to the position, requested a review and recommendations in the following areas: 

• the general culture of the organization:  as a group, what are their goals and what do they feel will be the major improvement areas; and
• the state of the total quality system of the division.

In order to obtain an accurate view of the organizational culture and climate, we prepared two surveys:  one for management and supervision, the other for the hourly work force. The hourly survey consisted of sixty questions in a multiple choice format. The questions were arranged to deduce measures of the reliability and internal consistency of the answers. It was administered plant-wide but completion of it was voluntary and anonymous. The survey for management and supervision was neither voluntary nor anonymous; however, the results were reported to upper management on a composite basis only. Each individual was given an interpre­tation of the results, in private. 

The management and supervision survey addressed two major issues through the exclusive use of open-ended questions. The first issue was their perception of the areas in which the organization could and should improve, and with which priority. The second issue dealt with their perception of their own management styles and career-growth needs. The expressed organizational concerns included the following: 

• cooperation and teamwork
• quality
• recognition
• systems and procedures
• employee (skills) training
• authority
• organization structure
• turnover
• working environment
• management and supervision

Only at the upper levels of management was there any indication that cooperation and teamwork were not a problem. At all other levels across every department, there was the feeling that not only was everybody looking after their own interests but that the organizational goals and game plans had been poorly communicated. Most people in fact thought that the direction that they were heading as individuals was the proper way to go. This naturally indicated a need to develop organizational goals and to attempt to get everybody to buy into them. It also presented a challenge to upper management to actively promote teamwork and cooperation.

Systems and procedures were felt to be generally inadequate to provide timely, accurate information. In most cases, there was little feedback to the lower levels of the organization. Supervi­sors would report on a per shift, daily and weekly basis but in order for them to know how trends, the interested supervisor was forced to create his or her own set of reports and summary sheets. These individual systems often were created so that they wouldn’t be surprised during their quarterly reviews with their superiors.

There was very little enthusiasm for the employee (skills) training “program.” It was found to consist of two films. The first film described what the facility did. The second film essentially told them that they would be fired if they were found to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol on company grounds. Neither film accomplished its task adequately. The second film usually left the new hire with a negative feeling about the company. Training in the operation of equipment was attempted by pairing the new hire with a “respected” veteran for one or two weeks. However, since many of the hourly workers were on a combination of hourly wage plus piecework, the training of new hires was often seen as a costly proposition for the “trainer.” The added compensation provided to the trainer was frequently not enough to make up for their lost piecework income.

This lack of enthusiasm for employee skills training was echoed in the survey of hourly personnel was no surprise. The combined findings indicated that the division needed to undertake a serious restructuring of their skills training program, or lack thereof. This was especially made critical by the increasing emphasis on producing a quality product and on reducing rework. It was seen as inconsistent to stress these two goals without providing proper training to the work force.

The only criticism of the organization structure came from upper management. In addition to the new division president, most of his immediate team had also been in place less than one year. Their general feeling, which we agreed with, was that there were too many layers of management. There were several instances of one-to-one reporting within departments (a perfectly vertical structure) and other examples of sub-optimal alignment of management and supervi­sion. That this was not seen as a problem by most of the other individuals in management and supervision was felt to be symptomat­ic of their average of twenty years experience within that operating environment. Upper management participated in developing a new organization chart and an implementation plan.

Turnover and the working environment were seen as related and as problems by everyone. Some departments, especially on the third shift, experienced in excess of one hundred percent turnover annually. While part of this turnover could be attributed to the high level of competition for employees within the textile industry, the lack of skills training provided to the employees and their relatively low wage were also perceived as major contribu­tors. Also, the facilities had been allowed to fall into cosmetic disrepair. In addition, the hourly workers indicated that they felt no opportunity for advancement within the organization. This was not a surprise because there was a nearly continuous rumor on the factory floor that the division would be closed soon.

This problem could be best addressed adequately over time. Management and supervision sought assurance from the parent corporation that they would remain open. Corporate representatives were brought in to talk to the work force. Whenever possible, things were done to create the sense of improvement and publicized. While initially these things were somewhat cosmetic, a plan was developed to more substantially demonstrate the commitment to the future. This included publicity surrounding their plans to bring in some new, state-of-the-art equipment. Many of the other elements to this plan were recommendations for the improvement of their overall quality system.

Management and supervisory training were universally viewed as weak. Most training was on the job. Most of it was done by people who themselves had received improper training. The system was self-perpetuating. Training sessions were prepared and given to all levels of management and supervision on an introductory basis. In addition, individualized programs were outlined for each supervisor and manager based on his or her input during the survey process.

Recognition and authority were generally not seen as problems. The supervisors and managers felt like they had enough of each although there was little evidence of either. Their feelings seemed to be based more on priority than on need.

Incoming material control, quality training, statistical process control, product planning, and other were the five areas reviewed in the division’s quality program. Several requirements, as follows, were identified with each area and were reviewed as to presence, adequacy, and extent of its use:

        Incoming materials

• Purchasing requirement defined
• Certified vendor program
• Certificates of compliance
• Visits to vendors
• Visits from vendors
• Vendor response to non-compliance
• SPC implemented at vendor facilities

        Quality Training

• Quality-minded corporate culture
• Knowledge of SPC principles
• Application of SPC principles

        Statistical Process Control

• Measurable process variables selected
• Necessary gauges and monitoring devices installed
• Machine capability studies performed
• Control charts constructed
• Control charts installed
• Control charts used to control and analyze process­es
• Corrective action system developed
• Corrective action system installed and in use
• Control charts used to improve process
• Automation of control charting

        Product Planning

• New product introduction process
• Specification sheets accurate
• System to revise and expand specification sheets

        Other (General)

• Gauge control
• Gauge R & R program
• Quality manual – policies and procedures
• Machine operator’s manual
• Sampling plans
• Scrap measurement and reporting system
• Out-going inspection of finished goods
• Customer complaint analysis and resolution system

By area and individual requirement, the study findings and recommendations were as follows:

Incoming Materials

 Purchasing Requirements Defined

Most of the raw materials coming into the facility were from “sister companies.” Regrettably, the corporate attitude was that the client had to accept essentially anything and everything that was supplied to it from the corporate family. Although problems had been documented, little recognizable action had been taken on the part of these suppliers to provide quality product. Client personnel had the feeling that they were being victimized.

Part of the difficulty was political. However, the situation was exacerbated by the incomplete nature of the client’s specifica­tions. They would complain that supplied yarn “did not run well” with no useful, quantifiable data for proposed action. They did not tell suppliers what they needed to “run well” on a consistent basis.

As a result, although the purchasing requirements were only partially defined, they were also only partially used.

Certified Vendor Program

The only “certification” of vendors was tied to chemical suppliers whose products were to be used in threads destined for the automobile and police markets. This certification was not so much due to the client’s efforts but to that of the suppliers. The suppliers were providing the same information to all of their related customers. The client was not certifying their suppliers but rather the suppliers were doing what would have been necessary on their parts to become certified anywhere else.

While this requirement was not technically in place, it was in use.

Certificate of Compliance

Certificates of Compliance were found to be not present and not in use.

Visits to Vendors

Visits to vendors were limited to weekly meetings with one of their sister companies which was within walking distance of the client facility. These meetings generally consisted of a brief presenta­tion to the vendor’s production management by thee client’s Quality Assurance Manager. As mentioned before, the presentation was only marginally relevant to the vendor’s information needs. The general tone at the meeting tended to be more social than business.

These visits to vendors were marginally present but essentially not used. Once data was available, it was expected that these meetings could start to be useful and could be extended to other vendors.

Visits from Vendors

Visits from vendors, except for the sister company down the street, were more along the lines of sales calls than visits to discuss quality-related technical issues.

These visits, from a practical standpoint, did not exist and were not used. However, as with visits to vendors, it was felt that once data became available (and in a useful format) there would be little difficulty in expanding the scope of the visits from vendors.

Vendor Response to Non-compliance

Because of the lack of hard data to present with claims of non-compliance, the responses to claims of non-compliance were based more on perception of effort than on quantifiable results. The “certified vendors” were judged as the most responsible but this was felt to be because they had their own data that they could analyze and they were, due to their own culture, interested and willing to dig into the perceived problem.

SPC Implemented at Vendor Facilities

Statistical Process Control was only implemented at the facilities of their chemical vendors. The vendors which were within the corporate family had done little to investigate the benefits of implementing statistical methods for the control of their processes and their quality.

Quality Training

Quality-minded Corporate Culture – There was a strong level of awareness that quality is important and an acknowledged emphasis by management. However, it was quickly obvious that the “How-to’s” had not yet permeated the culture. Everybody talked about it but nobody really knew what it meant.

Knowledge of SPC Principles – As alluded to above, knowledge of the fundamentals of Statistical Process Control was sketchy at best. Unfortunately, this was true at all levels and all departments in the organization, even within every person assigned to the Quality Control/Quality Assurance Department (including the Department Manager). As with basic skills training, effectively no training in the principles of SPC had been done nor was any scheduled for the near term.

Application of SPC Principles – Given the lack of knowledge of and training in SPC Principles, it came as no surprise that none of the principles had been applied. Nobody within the organization had sufficient knowledge or experience to apply SPC.

In response to each of the above requirements, it was recommended that at least one individual with sufficient knowledge and experience be recruited and hired to pursue the implementation of statistical methods for the control of quality and of their manufacturing processes.

Statistical Process Control

 Measurable Process Variables Selected – Few process variables had been identified or selected and none were used.

 Necessary Gauges/Monitoring Devices Installed – Incredibly, there were very few process-related gauges. None of those that were process-related were used for anything approaching SPC. Even the calibration of the gauges in the two laboratories (quality and dyehouse) was questionable as to when and to how effective.

Machine Capability Studies Performed – No machine capability studies had been performed. The definition of “machine capability” in use seemed to be “did the machine perform its basic function or not.”

Control Charts Constructed – One control chart had been constructed. It was in the unit of the plant which made Kevlar thread and threads which were destined for the automotive industry.

Control Charts Installed – Only one control chart in the facility was not used properly. Unfortunately, it was the only control chart which had been constructed and put into use. It was on a type of machine which ran twenty-four hours per day, five days per week. The chart was based on one measurement per day. The “control limits” which were indicated on the chart were, in fact, the product specification limits.

“No” or “None Found” was the appropriate response to the following:

• Control charts used to control and analyze processes
• Corrective action system developed
• Corrective action system installed and in use
• Control charts used to improve processes
• Automation of control charting

Product Planning

New Product Introduction Process – Because new products had not been introduced recently, there was no opportunity to directly observe this process. However, the description of the “standard” process varied so widely from individual to individual that classifying the process as not only not standardized or in use but simply inadequate seemed justified.

Specification Sheets Accurate – The major problem with the specification sheets was that they were not in a format that was useful to the floor personnel.

System to Revise and Expand Specification Sheets – No true system could be found. The basic orientation was not directed toward SPC, process capability, or the systematic identification and resolution of problems. Because of the lack of general awareness of machine capabilities, the development of new products, and of product specifications was essentially hit-and-miss.

Other (General)

 Gauge Control – There was a general lack of use of gauges. The few process-related gauges that were found were clearly not used for controlling the process. The majority of gauges were utility related.

 Gauge Repair and Replacement Program – No such program was evident. There were some gauges for which calibration tags could not be found. The rule rather than the exception was for calibration tags to indicate that the gauges had been calibrated five or ten years earlier.

Quality Manual – Policies and Procedures – Despite assurances that such a manual existed and that it was being revised, during the ten-week study nobody could produce a copy. It seemed likely that, even if one existed, it was not currently in use.

Machine Operator’s Manual – With over forty types of production equipment on site, several manuals were expected that could either support or refute the hypothesis that the machine operators were operating their equipment correctly. Not one manual could be located. This was somewhat expected for the older pieces of equipment. The lack of manuals provided further support for the lack of effectiveness of their basic skills training.

Sampling Plans – No sampling plans with any statistical basis could be found. Most sampling was tradition based. Several operations “required” the operator to physically and visually inspect one sample per dye lot or per batch. In most cases the “sample data” was not recorded anywhere or reported to anyone.

Scrap Measurement and Reporting System – The only “scrap measurement and reporting system” that could be found was in the Quality Control Lab. It was not directly used within Manufacturing at all. The Quality Manager was the only one who had historical data on scrap and he didn’t tell Manufacturing; he had started collecting the data for his own interests.

Out-going Inspection of Finished Goods – The only observed inspection of finished goods was related to the color and type of thread being packaged; more detailed inspection had been ceased six months earlier due to staffing considerations.

A random sampling plan was needed until they could implement Statistical Process Control on a plant-wide basis. While existing staff might not initially be able to provide a high degree of confidence in the results, they would at least begin to establish a base from which they could build.

Customer Complaint and Resolution System

 A reasonably good start had been made in the development and implementation of a system for analyzing and resolving customer complaints. The only weak points were in the areas of follow-up and resolution. The follow-up was somewhat tied to the resolution. The resolution, regrettably, was tied to the lack of data within a total quality system.

Project Results

 The study concluded that the client needed extensive work and, due to a lack of trained and available staff, extensive assistance in creating the necessary culture and systems to be competitive in their markets within the foreseeable future. An implementation schedule was prepared and presented for the cultural change and for the development and implementation of a total quality system. Without outside help, these processes were projected to require four to twenty hours each week for over three years of each individual on the payroll who possessed the appropriate training and experience. With three full-time consultants, this could be accomplished in nine to ten months.

The Public Defender provides legal defense services for the county’s indigent and those unable to otherwise afford legal counsel. The Public Defender initiated the project to work with his staff to develop and implement specific recommen­dations for productivity improve­ment. Project staff reviewed all work processes for clerical support and investi­gators.

This project defined the tasks of the three major groupings of employees:  legal secretaries, records clerks, and investigators. This was the first time work measurement techniques measured actual work within the Public Defender’s offices supplemented by employee input. The value of a study of this technical nature is to align the support staff required to the current staff levels of attorneys they assist.

During the project, all work activity was identified in each of the departments included. Department management then reviewed the submitted activities to eliminate redundant items. Some of these redundancies resulted from different interpretations of “the same” job by different individuals. Department staff collected a minimum of three weeks’ data by recording daily occurrences of each activity. The majority of areas recorded four to five weeks’ data and made changes to the task lists during the early weeks to enhance the listed tasks. While the employees recorded task activity volumes, project staff observed and determined the average time required to perform each task. The task observation phase gave project staff personal contact with each staff person and provided an opportunity for project staff to verify task steps. It also reassured the employees that project staff would pay careful attention to each performed task.

Span of control and organizational structure analysis revealed that, not only would significant savings result from reducing the number of investigator groups, accountability and control within the investigator groups would improve. In the Records Section, project staff determined that eliminating one of the two super­visors would yield a span of control within acceptable limits.

Among methods improvements recommended and implemented during the study, project staff created a computerized data base system to replace manual card files. This new system allowed faster responsiveness to the client and user community and eliminated a perceived pressing need for additional staff in the Alternative Indigent Defense Program. Altered work assignments balanced the work load among legal secretaries and among records clerks. 

After thorough analysis, project staff recommended against privitizing records storage based on lower in-house cost and improved access to and accountability and control over archived records.

A staffing model based on measurable work volumes led to staffing adjustments and reduced county expenditures per unit of service provided.