Printing and Packaging Industry Production Quality Management = Three Awarenesses + Three Controls + Two Weapons

　

Production management can be summarized in three sentences:

Cultivate three types of awareness

Follow process control closely

Plus two weapons

01 Cultivate Three Types of Awareness

When it comes to quality training, what gets talked about most is what quality means and how to achieve it well. Often, you speak until your mouth runs dry on stage, while trainees in the audience are ready to doze off.

After the training, they whisper among themselves, finally converging on one sentence: 'Sounds great, but it's just not practical for us!' Hearing this as a trainer, half your life feels drained away by frustration. Quality is actually simply put in one sentence: Quality = Conscience + Sense of Responsibility. This way, trainees can remember it easily and understand it readily.

Sometimes employees themselves ask: I took the company's money but didn't do the job well—can I face my own conscience? If my poor work caused significant losses to the company, my conscience would suffer even more. Production and quality inspection personnel would ask themselves the same question.

Once everyone has this awareness, with proper further guidance, quality issues are not that difficult to control. With just a bit of responsibility, such quality accidents wouldn't happen. Because Chinese people have a habit of fearing they cannot face their conscience, they will actively ask you: How can we do quality well in the future? At this point, they are teachable—and you can begin cultivating employees' three types of quality awareness!

1) Self-Inspection Awareness: Product quality is made, not inspected. The secret to production quality control is: Let everyone do their own products well. Employees are required to self-inspect the products they produce; only when they consider them acceptable can they flow to the next process or workshop. Non-conforming products found during self-inspection must be properly labeled and set aside separately by themselves.

2) Mutual-Inspection Awareness: For products flowing from the previous process or workshop, employees must not blindly proceed without looking. They must inspect and consider them acceptable before production can continue. Quality problems found in upstream processes or workshops must be promptly reported. Firmly adhere to: Do not produce non-conforming products, do not accept non-conforming products, do not pass on non-conforming products.

3) Dedicated-Inspection Awareness: After implementing self-inspection and mutual-inspection actions, production supervisors can instill in dedicated inspectors: While employees are producing, they are simultaneously conducting self-inspection and dedicated inspection. As dedicated inspectors, they should have an even stronger sense of quality control. If the dedicated inspector is your subordinate, communication is even easier; if not from your department, they will still accept your guidance!"

02 Follow Process Control Closely

In management, everyone focuses on results. Therefore, when discussing management, the most frequently heard phrase is: 'It doesn't matter whether the cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice, it's a good cat.' However, for quality control, only by closely following process control can quality be controlled.

1) First-Piece Inspection Control: Before production begins, team leaders, quality inspectors, and operators must carefully verify all materials to be used in production; they must confirm that the tooling and equipment to be used are stable and in good working condition. Then produce three sample products in small quantities to confirm whether they are acceptable. Only after passing this inspection can mass production proceed; if non-conforming, causes must be identified until conformance is achieved before mass production can begin.

2) Patrol Inspection Control: During the production process, management personnel and quality inspectors must conduct random sampling inspections of products, dedicating 80% of their attention to weak links in production, such as: inexperienced employees, critical equipment, and key positions.

3) Final Inspection Control: At the end of production line shutdown, the final products require strict control, as employees' mentality tends to become impatient at this time. I once encountered an incident that still frightens me when I think about it: an employee, eager to finish work, was short one product for packing. He found a non-conforming product, had someone rework it, and packed it directly without going through quality inspection—immediately caught by the team leader. This product had serious quality defects. Moreover, when shutting down production lines, some products are still awaiting rework. Therefore, the closer to completion, the stricter the control required!

03 Plus Two Weapons

Quality control in the production process is either improving or declining. To achieve 'long-term stability and security' in quality management, managers must carry two weapons at all times: the 'Visible Blade' and the 'Hidden Arrow.'

1) The 'Visible Blade' — 'Three Analyses, Three Non-Pardons' Activity

As the saying goes, visible blades are easy to dodge—but it depends on who wields the blade and what kind of blade it is. If it is a martial arts master holding a wooden blade, I doubt anyone would say it is hard to dodge. But if it is an untrained person holding a gleaming treasured blade, would you dare say it is easy to dodge? The weapon referred to here is a 'visible blade' with a manual of techniques.

At every morning production meeting, analyze quality problems that occurred and were encountered in yesterday's production. Thoroughly analyze the harmfulness of these quality issues so that everyone fully recognizes that once non-conforming products leave the factory, they will not only cause enormous negative impact on the enterprise but also harm user interests.

Next, analyze the causes of these quality problems, trace them layer by layer, clarify quality responsibilities, and identify loopholes. On this basis, analyze and implement appropriate corrective measures, promptly improving deficiencies. The entire process must truly achieve: 'Do not pardon until causes are not identified, do not pardon until quality responsibilities are not clarified, do not pardon until corrective measures are not implemented.' Managers wield the 'visible blade' in hand every day, pursuing quality improvement little by little.

2) The 'Hidden Arrow' — Personnel Quality Awareness Test Method

As the saying goes, hidden arrows are hard to guard against. In quality control, without this 'hidden arrow,' how can we eliminate employees' complacent thinking?

The implementation process of the personnel quality awareness test method is as follows: Managers periodically select some non-conforming products with inconspicuous quality defects, record their numbers or mark them, and mix them into a large batch of similar products to see whether employees can identify them promptly and in full. Those employees with weak quality awareness and careless work habits often find it difficult to score high when facing this 'exam' that comes without warning and can be held anytime, anywhere.

Therefore, the only way to withstand the test of the 'hidden arrow' is to maintain high vigilance and a strong sense of responsibility at all times during work: 'Do not accept non-conforming products from the previous process, do not pass non-conforming products to the next process.