How to motivate colleagues to use 8D method or similar

Miner - Y-X is a term I use internally in my own organization. I believe I heard it used casually in several different venues and forums to describe the progressive and convergent search approach. certainly Shainin LLC uses this approach as do many others (Steiner & Mackay and Keki Bote). It originated from many sources notable Leonard Seder, Jack Youden and a guy named H.C.A. Dale wrote several papers regarding the method in the fifties. An easy recent read on this approach can be found here. de Mast also wrote several papers on the use of "branch and prune" and constraints and structure in diagnostic problem solving.

It is important to distinguish the Y-X method as one intended for "complex" physics based problems and not one intended for differently complex people based problems although both frameworks rely on the basic "5-why" framework.

I worked at a Tier 1&2 injection molder with value added assembly. We got management onboard by tracking cost of waste, rework, customer scores, cost of performing corrective actions & repeats. Then management decided to score certain production groups (plant 1, plant 2, plant 3) and give recognition and minor rewards (pizza, etc) to the top scoring group. This caused production operators to be more interested and go to supervisors. The upward and downward interest drove interest and involvement in corrective actions being better.

Bev D said:

I am a bit of a heretic in many circles - I try to challenge the normative thinking and get people to really think about things. same here. I think that once you investigate the alternatives you will find them very powerful and you might revisit your opinions. I don't mean this in a pejorative way, but a person who grew up riding horses was against cars until they 'got it'. usually people have to experience a different way in order to see the weaknesses in the current way.

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Maybe so.

But even today there are times and places where a car just won't work and a horse is just the ticket.

Thank you a lot for all the comments and the interesting information added by Bev D.

Sadly, I think that top management is not that committed to quality, despite of having IATF 16949.
The company works as a workshop instead of a company and the phrase "always was done like this", "customer won't notice that" or "I do not have time for this" is a common mantra.

Bev D.

Deming would tell you to go find another place to work. and so would I.

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Well, for me that's the easy way,do not take as an offence, my point of view, maybe a bit romantic, is that get rid of this "bad habits" is part of the job of any member of the quality department and it should be for anyone in a company.

Regarding the topic of the post, my intention was about how to involve the people despite that the tool used. How can I encourage colleagues to embrace a methodology and a mind set, that is common and good practice for most of the companies?

BTW sorry if sometimes my English is not so good, it is not my main language.

Pau,

In the same way you cannot convince a heavy smoker to quit by stating facts on how smoking is a "bad habit" you cannot convince your colleagues to embrace a methodology and a mind set by stating how wonderful and amazing it will be.

I'm currently at a T2 injection moulder, started as the QE and now QM I loathe 8D's; it has always been pushed by automotive customers as the one solution to fix and the feeling I get from my customers it is more important to them than fixing the problem. I have never had a customer who has requested an 8D the problem fixed, only a "robust 8D". Perhaps your colleagues have had similar experiences.

My advice to you is to built rapport with your colleagues, ask them what problems they face, listen, and offer your help in fixing the problem.

And for the good of our profession please do not speak Quality or Japanese.

Best of luck and have fun.

Pau Calvo said:

Thank you a lot for all the comments and the interesting information added by Bev D.

Sadly, I think that top management is not that committed to quality, despite of having IATF 16949.

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Well, I would say in my experience a majority of top management in a majoroty of companies is "not that committed to quality". So finding another place to work is far from a guarantee that you won't end-up in the same kind of company. So most people have to put up with working in a less than ideal circumstance and making the best of it they can.

yes Mike - this is too true. I struggle with this issue every day. even with a committed top management there are always individuals who are not committed. I think we have to judge which situations are hopeless vs which are hopeful.

People need to be trained in problem solving, and once trained, they need to be allowed to solve problems. In some cases, training won't help much, because there are people who are incapable of forming logical trains of thought. This is a separate problem. The "tools" such as fishbones and 8D can be useful training devices, but it shouldn't be expected that they'll be adopted as problem-solving methods. In the present instance, if people are solving problems and identifying/neutralizing root causes without formally using 8D or anything else, there is no problem. On the other hand, if people are shirking and don't want to be bothered with deep thinking, that attitude needs to be changed before anything useful will happen.

My 2 cents ... Fishbone is often used to appease a customer who specifies it as an acceptable method to demonstrate that valid root cause analysis took place. Old school tool and old school thinking.

Current customer base does the same thing with 8d / 3x5 why / 5 why. A fishbone is perhaps appropriate if you are clueless as to the root cause and just starting an investigation, but usually we start out further along the trail already just through asking questions of the usual suspects.

And of course, for those only going through the motions instead of endeavoring for process improvement, it makes it appear as though something was done.

Jim Wynne said:

if people are shirking and don't want to be bothered with deep thinking, that attitude needs to be changed before anything useful will happen.

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That's what is happening and what I am struggling to change.
The business is going for more of 50 years and its going well, that seem to be enough to do not change the mind set but we are growing fast now and my fears grow with the bussines....