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Are You Seeing the Details when you Look?

Look at what you see!  What does that mean?  You must learn to see the details where you look.  Let me illustrate my point.  I cannot tell you how very many times over the years that an installer (or even worse – a customer) has called to say there was something wrong with a sign and it cannot be installed. 

This has happened at every shop for which I have worked.  If you have been in the sign business for any extended period of time, I bet it has happened to you!

Oddly enough, it doesn’t seem to matter how many people handle the signs prior to their installation. 

And, if there are not disciplined quality control check points, it may happen frequently.  Many people can handle a sign without any of them actually seeing what they are looking at. 

Quality control checks for size, color, shape, and spelling are checks that one might think would be automatic.  Frequently this is not the case.

Make Every Process a Check Point

If Quality is an issue, a checklist should be used to make sure all criteria are met.

The one way I have found to help correct the situation is to make each step of the fabrication process a quality control point. 

If your shop is large enough to have section or department leaders, each of them must check the product for errors and blemishes prior to moving the materials onto the next process. 

Frequent training sessions are required to emphasize the necessity to pause and focus on what you are looking at.

The farther through the process, the more important it is to be thorough.  The reason is simple.  There is no money in doing things twice. 

The farther your product is into the fabrication process, the more time, labor, and materials will be required to correct a faulty product. 

If you don’t catch it at all and the customer has to report it, in their eyes, you have no quality control.  If it happens often, you will probably loose your customer.

Focus on What You See.

Looking for detail through a microscope.

I compare this activity to looking through a microscope. 

If you use your unaided eyes to view something, you will get a general overall view.  If you look through the microscope, you see more detail.  If you increase the power of the lens you are looking through, you will see even more detail.

A quality control check is similar in principle.  One must pause, focus, take time and consciously try to see what he is looking at.  It sounds simple.  It is not!  This requires discipline.

 Unless one has a problem with their vision, everyone has the ability to be aware of details. 

In the sign business (as well as most other businesses), attention to detail is absolutely required.  Also, it may not be as easy to train yourself and your employees to focus on details as one might think.  We all frequently assume we know what we are looking at without actually verifying the accuracy of our observations.

Train Yourself to SEE!

Checking the consistancy of the material

It seems that most of us need to be reminded to look at something until we actually see it. 

Some of the shops I have worked for have established incentives to find mistakes as early as possible in the fabrication process.  This has met with varying degrees of success. 

Some shops would reprimand employees for failing to notice a defect.  Generally, this was less effective a motivator than incentives.  However, neither approach seemed to totally get the results that were desired.

 In my opinion, the best way to motivate individuals to perform frequent quality checks is to inspire individual pride in their work. 

If good leadership principles are employed to develop pride in craftsmanship regardless of the process, then each employee is individually motivated to not only find the mistakes but to avoid making the mistakes in the beginning.

Teach the Pride of Craftsmanship

The key to success here is sincerity.  Management cannot inspire a high degree of pride in workmanship on a case-by-case basis. 

The craftsman needs to take pride in all of the work they do.  It really does not matter how menial the process they are performing; it needs to be done well.  If they are sanding, the substrate needs to be devoid of defects prior to painting or printing.

 As with many other things, outstanding performance cannot be forced upon someone. 

It is generally impossible to push someone into performing their job in an exceptional manner.  People must be led into superior performance.  They must be motivated to invest themselves in the process.  They must check for mistakes because the really do care, not because they fear criticism or punishment. 

 

This is another one of Randall’s Rules for Production Management.  Look at What You See!