Quality sucks doesn't it?

8/10/2011 2:46 PM EDT

Good topic! Here are some questions:
* Do you think Quality of products over the last few years is generally unchanged, improving or getting worse?
* If getting worse, why do you think that is?
* Does companies in general give you enough time to put quality into the products and documentation that you work on?
* Do you think, on average, that companies provide sufficient quality and support for their products?
* Are you able to get to support engineers easily? If not, why not?
* Do "peer support forums" really work?
* Do you regularly get answers to your support questions in a timely fashion?
* Has the quality of the components that you use put at risk the ability for you to successfully complete your more complicated projects?
* How can you tell if the components that you choose have sufficient quality and support?
* What can we do to encourage companies to provide qood quality and support for their products?
* What do you think about an Engineer's Quality Seal of Approval that is awarded to companies and products that are recognized to provide consistent quality and support, an award that is used to distinquish those companies and products that do well in the area of quality, documentation and support.

8/10/2011 4:33 PM EDT

About a zillion years ago, various quality initiatives were served up at larger companies in an effort to improve quality. In some cases, there were spectacular successes. I think. Motorola? TI? In others, where the product wasn't a widget but perhaps a service, the effort was a giant waste of time with no perceivable value, except to make management feel good, and to give jobs to a host of past-their-prime engineers who became "facilitators" or some such silly title at the quality meetings. (Of course, some of these engineers never had a prime, they were always the overhead paper-pushers... but that's another gripe.) It seemed that these programs were always being jammed down our throats, whether or not the original target activity fit the new application. For example, something called the 5 S or 5 R or some other 5 thing showed up in our engineering office at Big Aircraft Company. "What're the 5 Rs?" I wanted to know. No one knew, it was some Japanese thing. The wife of some suit on mahogany row, I was told, thought it was a great idea. Turns out it was intended for manufacturing. Well, part of Big Aircraft Company manufactured Aircraft. We didn't manufacture anything: we put black plastic marks on paper. What a waste. Then there was ISO 9000, which documented both very good practices and very poor ones as well, but it did give rise to a whole industry of parasites while adding another tax on the price of a good...does anyone think HP's or Tektronix' products were improved one iota by an ISO 9000 sticker? C'mon. Perhaps I'm a bit jaded, but I've never personally seen a quality system do good and avoid evil except at Western Electric. Perhaps there were others. Perhaps...

8/10/2011 6:44 PM EDT

"Perhaps I'm a bit jaded...."

I think George Bernard Shaw had you summed up:
"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.

Nice post Bob, well said.

8/10/2011 8:13 PM EDT

The first questions you should ask about the "self-serve" methodology is "Have you ever resolved your issue in this way"?
Many companies have adopted this method because giving personalized service to every person that calls their tech support line is not scalable. As a former tech support person I cannot begin to tell you how many issues would never have occurred if the person calling had read the data sheet or the app note through. Having said that, there are certain technical issues that will only be resolved by escalating the issue to a product or design engineer.

8/10/2011 9:08 PM EDT

One of the first things to ask is what is Quality? From my viewpoint Quality is:
* products that meet or exceed their specifications that deliver on the promises made. * products with comprehensive documentation of all of the features with how to use and configure them. * products that have been fully tested at the manufacturer before being released into the marketplace. * products that are provided with services for the manufacturer which includes active, helpful and knowledgeable technical support. * products that are updated quickly when defects are found. * products that have a very low infant mortality. * products that are reliable. * products that "do what they say and say what they do". * products where the quality of the documentation exceeds the expectations of the customer. * products whose manufacturers care about their customer's experience with their products and are actively engaged in using customer input to improve their products.

8/10/2011 9:35 PM EDT

Do we mean "quality" here or "reliability"? Let;s be sure we are clear with ourselves and others, they are not the same thing.

In short: "quality" means it meets the promised spec, when first used or tested; "reliability" means it continues to work to spec and not fail or degrade in use.

You can have one, both--or neither!

8/11/2011 12:02 AM EDT

Imagine a Company that did not think of Quality as an attribute of a Product or a Process, but as an attribute of the Company itself. That the Company provided Products and Services that their Customers could rely on as Quality Products and Services. That the Company itself saw this as an overall goal for continuous internal improvement. One would think that having such a goal and achieving the same would have an intrinsic benefit and a long term competitive advantage. Now, imagine the reverse where Companies compete based purely on the minimum effort and cost to deliver a given Product or Service to the marketplace regardless to how the Product or Service is perceived. One would think that the simplistic application of the laws of Economics, especially in difficult times, would tend to favor the latter strategy rather than the former. But what implication would such actions have on Society in the long run? The implications would not necessarily be visible over the short run. What can be done to avoid such a tendency?

8/11/2011 2:49 AM EDT

Firstly the quality product means it has many many useful applications. The user finds it easy and comfortable to use it. Non polluting to the user and the others. Highly efficient and so economic to the user. Then the other part is reliability. Then comes service cost during wear and tear.And not but the least its price tag. All this together rates the quality of the product.

8/11/2011 3:10 AM EDT

This reminds me about Edward Deming's principles on quality. Are the companies looking for short-term fixes or long-term commitment.
How does their reward system work (quarterly/yearly, achievement bonuses are short term encouragements, they may drive sales may be not quality)
What are these companies afraid of? if they are afraid of competition, they follow what competition does and cut costs and trade-off on quality.

8/11/2011 1:14 PM EDT

This is a very intriguing topic. Given the responses that I've read thus far, I'm curious, how does you company provide support to its consumers? If it's following the model as specified in this article, does that mean you support it? If not, then why haven't you taken steps to change it?

8/11/2011 6:25 PM EDT

So, as we try to devise the survey, here's my attempt at a recap:
+ It sounds like we need to attempt to define quality (and perhaps reliability) first (thank you Bicycle Bill)
+ Don has a bunch a great potential questions (tip of the cap, again)
+ Patrick's "self-serve" question is excellent

Here's a tactical question of my own for you: What's your breaking point on # of questions? five? 10? 15? We could build a very comprehensive survey, but I don't want to field something too large and time consuming.

Maybe this initial survey defines the problem largely and subsequent polls could drill down...

8/11/2011 8:09 PM EDT

I think tha Quality is in the eye of the Customer: a product that does the job well, is easy to apply and work with, is not a dissapointment in any way, comes with support if necessary.

8/12/2011 12:45 PM EDT

Customer involvement in all product/service development phases (or as much of them as possible) is the key to ensure high quality. A simple fact that is often overlooked...

8/12/2011 2:16 PM EDT

Let's table the discussion of ISO 9000 if we can and get back to the questions the the author asked. Are Engineer's currently experiencing a quality problem with the products and services that we use or not? What questions can be asked of the community to find out? Secondly, if we do have a problem, what can the Engineering community do to help correct it?

8/12/2011 3:18 PM EDT

I would like to see one of the questions asked "When building a product, and a premature failure happens, do you expect it to be repaired or thrown away? "

My theory is, that our 'throw away' culture has directly affected quality, as engineers and manufactures do not get to see the real life product failures like they used too.. Now when a problem happens, we rip out entire modules or systems and throw them in the garbage.

8/12/2011 4:04 PM EDT

For starters, ISO9000 seems to be primarily a means of assuring that a company can duplicate a procedure with any cheap help hired off the street, since the premise is that adequate documentation removes the requirement for skills and talent. Quality, at least as I see it, starts with reliability, in that a high quality product will continue to meet specifications for a relatively longer period of time. Unfortunately there are a bunch of individuals who equate quality with the number of features, which is about as opposite a characteristic as I can imagine. For quality documentation, accuracy would be the primary parameter, next to completeness. Clarity would be a third characteristic, nice, but less important. So there are my thoughts about quality.
Has quality decreased as time has gone by? My view is that for many organizations, quality was shipped out on the last train many years ago, and now products are optimized for minimum cost of production and minimum cost of materials, followed by optimization for maximum style. Functionality and durability are concepts not allowed near the product development buildings.

8/12/2011 5:10 PM EDT

Many quality problems stem from very short return-on-quality-investment time horizons (AKA "shortsightedness"). If there is no benefit within that horizon, the problem gets "kicked down the road" for a new set of managers and a new set of investors to worry about. Three multiple-choice questions to elicit insight on this aspect might be:

* When determining whether to undertake a particular action to improve product quality, what timeframe is used by your organization to make the decision?
o The action must show a positive return this quarter.
o The action must show a positive return within a year.
o The action must show a positive return within five years.
o The action is usually approved regardless of ROI.
o The action is usually rejected regardless of ROI.

* How is that timeframe different from 10 years ago?
o much shorter
o shorter
o about the same
o longer
o I haven't been working that long

* For what kind of organization do you work?
o Publicly traded corporation
o Privately held company
o Government/academia/other

8/12/2011 5:17 PM EDT

Quality means having a product such that works well consistently. That has to happen regardless of retirements, vacations, growth, etc. ISO9000 helps the "consistently" part, though obviously it's not enough. The "works well" part is a customer judgement, not a determination that it meets spec. Specs are just a way to try to get that customer judgement. Reliability is when the product works well for a long time.

I used to have a colleague that asked two questions of a new product: Works fine? Lasts long time? That seemed to be the necessary and sufficient criteria for a good product.

Of course, that isn't necessarily the case when lawyers or marketers enter the picture.

8/12/2011 8:17 PM EDT

This whole question about whether quality has gotten worse reminds me of an old saying, sometimes said by engineering to management:

"Short schedule, low cost or high quality. Pick any two, but you can't have all three."

8/15/2011 9:15 AM EDT

The reason for the decline of quality is two-fold. First, when upper management tried and was ultimately successful in detaching loyalty from the company to the employees, there is less effort to make things good, as you are just on your way from one position or company to another. The 2nd part is where the company invests it's money. There is a lot less investment into the people who design and build product and a lot more invested into peripheral functions. It's saddening to thing that management can't grasp that hiring a $100,000 accountant will not save you $100,000 each and every year. However, hiring a $100,000 engineer will most likely result in millions of dollars of new product. Is it really that difficult to see that???

8/15/2011 9:43 AM EDT

But what can we as Engineers do to influence the choice of Good, Fast, Cheap and the Race to the Bottom? The lack of some reasonable level of Quality affects ALL of us.

I think that we need to help those that provide Products and Services with Quality some competive advantage and a reason for doing so. I have suggested something like an Engineer's Seal of Quality where we all vote and recognize those products and services that we feel have done a good job. Other Engineers will see those ratings and begin to use and prefer products and services that are well respected. Some companies would see this as something to strive for. It may be a large undertaking, but could be automated and administered by someone respected like the EEtimes.

I am sorry, but I haven't yet thought of anything better, where the users of those products and services (us), as a group, may use the power of our recomendations to help directly influence the Quality of the items that we use.

8/15/2011 7:27 PM EDT

Top-10 lists are usually good.

When I think of the word quality, the first thing I think of is my Toyotas – a Corolla and Tundra. Quality, value, dependability, continual improvements from previous generations, support, fit-and-finish, ergonomics, comfort, etc.

I actually quit my last Process Engineering job because of continual, agonizing, useless conversations with various managers, directors, and Cxx’s. They didn’t want to improve a process (quality) because it was too much work, was too costly (regardless of projected (and occasionally PROVEN) ROIs), they wouldn’t even look at the proposals, or, and this was the single biggest problem of all, they didn’t want to improve a process because the improvement was too easy. Yes, too easy. They hated it because it made them look stupid that they were doing some idiotic process for years and a simple change would yield vast improvements. But if they did that, they were immediately called out as to why they had never looked at their own processes and never gave their managers or supervisors the freedom to consider making changes. It was preposterous the changes that were NOT made because of their appearance and to keep their jobs. They would rather close the shop (which they ultimately did) rather than own up to not reviewing their own processes or take a little heat for making mistakes (being human?). I gave up and quit. Quality? Not much…

8/16/2011 10:22 AM EDT

I hate it when someone tells me that we don't want to "over design". This one attitude alone is causing "quality to suck".

Most of the time putting that extra design effort doesn't cost that much and actually ends up costing less because re-design (and lawsuits) are avoided later.

COME ON FELLOW ENGINEERS:
NEVER SAY.. "WE DON'T WANT TO OVERDESIGN."

- Mike

8/16/2011 12:34 PM EDT

Perhaps the questions could start by probing some underlying issues:
1) Ego. Are we living in a post-technical era where decisions are controlled by big-business, big-banks, big beauracrats, big egoes? A lack of quality isn't a technical/scientific problem at all. (Paul hit this nail on the head and I've had similar experiences.)
2) Honesty. Too many problems (quality and otherwise) get swept "away" through use of deception, "creative" accounting (or whatever), mis-representation and out right lies. You just keep building a house of cards.
3) Complexity. Today's highly complex products (especially software aspects) are creating an environment where its impossible for any creator or user to understand the whole thing. Complex processes are then expected to fill the void but the processes themselves are getting too complex and suffering the same quality issues as the products they are creating and supporting. We need to simplify!
4) Heart attitude. To what extent would respondents agree with the 1900+ year old quote, "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as though you were working for the Lord and not for people." Do I have any moral basis for doing things right?

8/17/2011 12:42 PM EDT

The sub-conversation about scaling the customer hits home for me, the assumption about writing a questionnaire assumes 10 questions can be composed about quality when the very word is understood to mean so many things to so many differently-hatted engineers. Good luck.

BTW (scaling a listener) Any time I explain a technical issue I have to know how much fundamental information is already understood so the listener can understand the detail. Many engineers I've seen in action are awfully short with people that require more explanation/starting simpler than they care to take time to explain. Result: an expectation that "Engineers are aloof!" This is why people like Jim Williams and Bob Pease are so revered by other engineers, they always seemed to be willing (per the recent funerary testimonies) to instruct rather than assume. If only we could all remember that questions asked in ignorance are opportunities to erase the ignorance!

8/18/2011 4:04 AM EDT

How do you -as an engineer- think we can win from our Chinese compatitors on the longer turn?

8/18/2011 4:09 AM EDT

What time (in percentage of development time) would you -as an engineer- suggest to really make the user interface properly done? (Note: I find this often SO HORRIBLE, even with modern products. I tried to install a stupid label printer lately, heck, what a non-intuitive horrible peace of shabby programming! )

8/18/2011 7:20 PM EDT

Quality sucks doesn't it? I do not believe quality is a dead concept. Most prudent engineers want high quality products by nature. Engineers work with products before they are produced so engineers know what quality of product they are producing before anyone else uses it. Why would an engineer put out a product with low quality? Criminal, insanity, or ignorance. Criminal as in the engineer knowing lets a low quality product go into production. Why? For the engineer’s or others (They that shalln’t be named) benefit (“Benefit” covers several concepts from profit to survival). Insanity in that the engineer or others (They that shalln’t be named, again) has convinced themselves that the product is “high quality” (“Convinced” covers several concepts from willful blindness to System Acceptance). Ignorance is more likely as in no one knows there is a quality “problem” until there is a problem (“knows” covers several concepts from rush jobs to limited testing). Direct any questions to these three and you will have some good questions.

8/24/2011 11:16 AM EDT

1. Schedule, schedule, schedule rules the day. In my career of 30 years this has always been the most important for management. My highest job ratings have always come from finishing ahead of schedule. Never has it been for enhancing quality.
2. If we emphasized quality as much as we emphasize schedule we would not have any quality problems.
3. Can't hide missing schedule but quality problems can be hidden and swept under the rug for a time.
4. Keep missing schedule and you get fired.
5. Keep missing quality and you many times enhance your own job security so that you can fix the quality problems.

8/24/2011 4:27 PM EDT

yes the emperer has no clothes, anyone that can see this or vocalises this is shown the door.
Either because they demand a living wage or because they have thruth-ets, or a combination of both.

8/24/2011 4:31 PM EDT

Buzz words like swimlanes, P3, that come trumped about to solve al the problems come through every 3 to 5 years touted by upper management to solve quality issues. But not attempt to understand details is ever made. leaving the engineer that is still employed to triage between useless paperwork pushed out by manangement and real value added work that needs to be done to improve quality, performance, and reliability.
Don't actually fix anything just roll out the new best thinging program whao-whao!

8/26/2011 10:42 AM EDT

All this doom & gloom, I don't agree. I currently work for a semiconductor company that supplies IC's to the automotive industry. I am in a group that is required to analyze any and all customer failures and provides corrective action to prevent further occurences. I used to work for a company in a simular fuction some 40 years ago that supplied high rel hermetic IC's for space and missle programs. From my perspective we are providing a more complex plastic encapsulated higher quality/reliable product today with a much lower PPM failure rate. And todays parts sell for less than a buck where the high rel hermetic parts went for some 40-50 bucks for a simple gate. Today's automobile customers demand and get a cheap high quality reliable product. Today's IC manufacturers have a much more controlled process from wafer fab to assembly. Part of the credit for reliability also goes to the end user. They have much more controlable assembly processes (especially those supplying the automotive industry). We see much fewer board assembly induced failures caused by things like high temp or acid flux.

8/29/2011 12:53 AM EDT

I worked for a PCB shop that would ship products with less than 3% failure (they'll be grudgingly accepted); rework lines for 3-15% failure rate; and ship if failure rate over 15% because it will generate an engineering change order. Same with low bid Government contracts: bid just below cost, get an engineering change order for more money; alternative is rebid delay and/or pay even more for the rework bidders. Boeing "rolled out" the 787 with plywood doors and non-flyable aluminum (not spec titanium) rivets because sales is more important than integrity. High tech is not a substitute for good judgment. Toyota saved a ton of money by using computer modeling for reliability testing and according to the model they used, "unintended acceleration" doesn't happen in their testing.

8/29/2011 2:46 AM EDT

RE: the specious (I hope) argument about "Quality" vs "Reliability". Consider the hard drive salesman: "MTBF 250,000 hours". In small print that is extrapolated from "sweet spot" of the reliability curve of failures at unit time, between 1 and 6 months typically. Units not tested by the mfg have a higher initial failure rate and (if not "burned in") also experience higher "initial mortality". And taken before significant wear sets in. Are Solid State Disks more reliable? Most have MTBF greater than 150 years! But the fine print is data retention is less than 5 years. (10 yrs for SLC.) So 10% of my data can be garbage after 1 year; but the SSD is quality product because the drive itself will outlive me?

8/31/2011 6:19 PM EDT

OK guys, enough with the whining, let's take a long hard look at ourselves. Why do we need these much criticised 'manager types' involved at all? Why do we leave control of our budgets, hiring and society to people who can get by without the stuff that matters so much to us, like 'Quality'.

If we're so darn clever why do we act so stupid? We're no help to each other or to society if we don't organize commercially viable enterprises that employ our talents for gain.

If we can see so clearly what is broken out there, then we have the responsibility to fix it. Who else is going to turn things around? More 'manager' types? Politicians? Hairdressers? (no offence meant).

We should be learning how to run things; hiring the accountants and using their expertise to get the money part right; selecting the right people for now and training for the future; and involving customers in the process of long-term relationships based on trust and support without exploitation on either side.

So why don't we want those responsibilities? Because we would have to learn some new stuff? Come on, because if we don't really care enough to fix things we are no better that the people who don't care about quality, reliability or value...

'nuff said, I'm going back to my shed!

8/31/2011 8:44 PM EDT

That's one point of view. Some of which I agree with.

But I am not willing to just stand back and let the American society deteriorate until it has the same problems as the Chinese:
* low wages and low productity
* rampant piracy and counterfeit parts/products,
* intentional contamination
* early part failure, sometimes loss of life
* reduction in safety and reliability
* cover ups
* more litigation (in USA)
* stolen intellectual policy

I have suggested one simple means in which Engineers can use thier voice and votes to help change things. But so far I have gotten no support or other suggestions. Engineers are innovative people. We should be able to find some way to improve this situation before it gets much worse. That's why I mentioned to Brian Fuller. Who's with me?

8/31/2011 9:49 PM EDT

Sometimes I don't have much time at all (encountered problem, need answer now!), but company sponsored group forum is the only support option provided. That's when things really get Dicey.