Insights & Articles
Field notes on quality leadership, crisis management and operational excellence — from the shop floor to the boardroom.
The real reason your OEE number is wrong
Every factory tracks OEE. Most are lying to themselves. After auditing OEE calculations across two decades of plants, here is why your number is almost certainly higher than your reality — and what to do about it.
Lean tools without lean thinking is just organised waste
5S boards, kanban cards, value stream maps, gemba walks — every factory has them. Most factories use them wrong. Here is what happens when you deploy lean tools without understanding lean principles, and how to fix it.
Stop calling it a quality problem. It is a leadership problem.
Every "quality problem" I have investigated in twenty years traces back to a leadership decision that prioritised short-term results over long-term system health. The defect is a symptom. The cause is in the boardroom.
When you certify belts, you get belts — not practitioners
Certifications prove you read the textbook, not that you can solve problems on a production line. Two decades of quality outcomes make that clear.
Production additive manufacturing doesn't need more data. It needs a control plan.
The AM industry spent a decade perfecting builds but forgot verification. Most producers shipping into aerospace lack proper PFMEAs and inspection routings.
The supplier development programme that actually worked
After years of failed supplier development initiatives, I built one that delivered measurable results in six months. No consultants, no frameworks, no jargon — just a disciplined approach that treated suppliers like partners, not vendors.
The recall I prevented by ignoring the procedure
The quality procedure said to ship the parts. My instinct said something was wrong. I broke the rules and held the shipment. What happened next changed how I think about procedures, judgement, and the real purpose of a quality system.
"I shut down a production line for three days. Here is what it cost."
Stopping a production line is the hardest decision a quality leader makes. I made it at an automotive plant and tracked every euro of the cost — and every euro it saved. The math will surprise you.
Eighty percent of corrective actions are Band-Aids on bullet wounds
Most corrective actions do not correct anything. They suppress symptoms, close findings, and guarantee the problem returns in six months. Here is what real corrective action looks like — and why so few organisations do it.
When you pay for quality metrics, you get metrics — not quality
Ford is tying bonuses to quality after massive recalls exposed dashboard gaps. But financial incentives alone won't fix a culture that buries defects instead of finding them.
Your calibration interval is a guess. Prove it.
Every measuring instrument in your plant has a calibration interval. Most of those intervals were set by the manufacturer, accepted without question, and never validated. Here is why that is a problem — and what to do about it.
Your management review is a status meeting pretending to be governance
The management review required by ISO 9001 is supposed to be the engine of continuous improvement. In most companies, it is a PowerPoint parade where nothing is decided and nothing changes.
No articles match your search.