Hello Dan, Andrew and X-Acto;
I have responded to your question towards the end X-Acto.
Thanks for the response Ardie;
Yes these are old ideas, concepts that are approaching 90 years, yet they
still work for quality.
I will build a story, that gives you an idea of Deming, and how his
philosophy enhances Pirsig, and how Pirsig's philosophy enhances Deming.
This is a simple story.
The story begins with let us say; I am a new quality /safety manager for a
company with 500 employees that work outdoors.
A senior manager comes to me and tells me the workers injury compensation
payments are too high. He tells me to do something about lowering injuries.
He also adds its costing him on around $3000 dollars per injury, because an
employee sits on average 4 days before recovering from their injury.
I have some statistical data of injuries from the previous 36 months. It
appears that ankle injuries are the most frequently occurring injuries. I
add up the ankle injuries for the 36 months, I then divide by 36 and come
up with a number of 41. So on average this organization has 41 ankle sprain
or fractures that occur every month.
I want to do something because it is a moral thing; lowering that average
will also reduce the number of people who suffer pain and injury each
month. Would someone say my moral thinking is subjective? A psychopath
might.
At this point I calculate standard deviation of 1, and come up with an
upper limit of 47 ankle injuries and a lower limit of 35, I calculate
standard deviation of 2 upper limit 53, lower limit of 29. I calculate
standard deviation of 3 upper limit of 59 and a lower limit 23.
Next month I can forecast the ankle injury rate with 99% certainty will
fall between 59 and 23. I can also say that 68% of the time it will fall
between a standard deviation of 1, from 47 to 35.
Pirsig would call this a static pattern, Deming would say it is in a state
of statistical process control. Pirsig would say it's a system that will
not change unless there is "dynamic quality" added to it. Deming would say
there has to be some "special cause" variation in order for change to
happen, the static pattern he see's is "common cause" variation, it's a
normal distribution curve, it is a normal pattern that occurs in nature.
Let's say I do some research and visit 50 employees out in the field, and
startled to find that 48 of them wear low cut running shoes, only two of
them were wearing something with good solid ankle support
I go to several work boot suppliers, ask them for advice and I am
impressed with one of them having so much knowledge on what good ankle
support is in a workboot. What's average better and best, in both comfort
and support, then he shows me the longest lasting, high quality boot with
those attributes.
At a company meeting, I explain my rational and ask upper management to
reimburse every employee for boot purchase from that one supplier. I add in
that boots are personal protective equipment, and OHS regulations require
us to reimburse our employees for this. Maybe there is a large debate,
maybe the accountant says, "the guys out in the field are all idiots, they
just have to be more careful." Maybe at the end of the meeting the CEO
steps in and says "We have not been able to lower that rate in 3 years, in
spite of threats of termination and terminations, we have lost lots of our
most productive employees." He then agrees to go with my recommendations.
I have done something to change the system, we wanted to see that average
of 41 ankle injuries per month drop, and if we make the next month
measurement and find, that it is below 23 (standard deviation of 3) , it
may mean something. It may mean that the process of how ankle injuries
occurr is no longer a stable process, something has changed in the system.
As more people purchase boots we see, it drops to 20 then the following
month it goes to 15, thats a trend, because in the past 3 years it never
went below 23. Thats improvement in the quality of the working environment
for employees out in the field, thats something that is measureable.
I measure the ankle injury rate for another 36 months, after the changes,
and see that the average is now 13 with the Upper control limit is 21 and
the lower control limit is now 0, thats real, we can see those numbers. Now
that is an improvement in the quality of the working environment of 68%,
specific to ankle injuries.
Maybe the CEO talks with me about those 0 ankle injury months, and tells
me upper management has decided that they want them all to be 0 ankle
injury months. I try to explain to him about human beings and variation.
"Common cause variation in rain, wind, heat, terrain, stress, fatigue,
having a baby, and worried about keeping your job all fix those static
patterns of quality, from 0 to 21. Even the support of an employees direct
manager affect those numbers along with cooperation and teamwork from
fellow employees. Threats of firings or lay-off's do not help, after all,
who can think clearly when they are agitated, because distractions cause
those ankle sprain injuries."
I tell him to expect the average to remain the same around 13. I tell him
the 0-21 variation from month to month is a normal distribution pattern
that is seen in nature. I state to him matter of factly, that business men
cannot really make demands on nature or science to change. Both safety and
quality will always see these normal distribution patterns, and for that
reason it will never reach 0 every month. I say to him that I will try to
come up with some other ways to improve the quality of the working
environment for our employees, but expect it not to move until I come up
with some ideas and we implement those changes.
Maybe the accountant meets me in the hallway moments later and says, " We
can have a 0 ankle injury month, and if you cannot do it every month maybe
we should hire a quality/ safety manager that can."
Hello X-Acto, I will keep to Pirsigs or Demings description of a SYSTEM,
because both of them talk about corruption, you can review Pirsigs full
description in Chapter 8.
Pirsig is extremely artful in his description because he has a Doctorate
in Creative Writing; Deming a physicist, mathematician, and statistician,
sometimes outwardly states they are corrupted by their greed. I think that
the systems theorists description that you sent me was well thought out of
what it should be; but naive as to what happens in real life, a SYSTEM can
create the Iraq war and unknowingly produce an ISIS, but was it really an
intelligent move?
Here is some of what Pirsig states in Chapter 8;
"But to tear down a factory or revolt against a government....because it
is a system is to attack effects rather than causes, and as long as the
attack is against effects, no change is possible. The true system, the real
system is the construction of systemic thought itself, rationality of
thought, and if a factory is torn down but the rationality of thought which
produced it is left standing, then that rationality will simply produce
another factory."
"If a revolution destroys a systematic government, but the same systematic
patterns of thought are left intact,
then those same patterns will repeat themselves in succeeding
governments." From Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert
Pirsig
In this imaginary story "the real system is the construction of systemic
thought itself, rationality of thought" of the capitalist system
which is based wholly on greed and self interest, which is a part of
government just as much as it is part of business. The rationality of the
CEO and the accountant in this made up story is the real system, "the
construction of systemic thought itself, rationality of thought",is not
science its disturbed and biased and will always make poor decisions
concerning quality because of self interest, self importance and greed.
From: "X Acto" <[email protected]>
To: "moq discuss" <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, September 9, 2017 11:23:21 AM
Subject: Re: [MD] The need for quality
Sent from my iPhone
On Sep 7, 2017, at 11:35 AM, Andrew Chu <[email protected]> wrote:
From: "WES STEWART" <[email protected]>
To: "moq discuss" <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, September 6, 2017 10:15:27 PM
Subject: Re: [MD] The need for quality
Hell Dan and All;
I get a lot of my philosophy of quality, not from Pirsig but from
William Edwards Deming. It was back in the twenties when Walter Shewhart
and Deming were searching for ways to improve the Quality of transmission
lines at Bell Labs. They had defined Quality as a SYSTEM that is in a state
of continuous improvement. Shewhart and Deming looked at all SYSTEMs then
used their intellect or reason to search for ways to improve the SYSTEM.
Martin Luther King also used his intellect for ways to improve the
SYSTEM, in which he paid the ultimate price that was delivered from
Biologically dominated human beings.
Ron interjects:
Hello Wes,Dan, All,
I've been following the thread off and on and I was curious about how Wes
defined the term "SYSTEM".
In system theory it is defined as
an entity with interrelated and interdependent parts; it is defined by its
boundaries and it is more than the sum of its parts (subsystem).
Positive growth and adaptation of a system depend upon how well the system
is adjusted with its environment, and systems often exist to accomplish a
common purpose (a work function) that also aids in the maintenance of the
system or the operations may result in system failure.
With the goal being isotelesis.
the intelligent direction of effort toward the achievement of an end.
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