For ISO 9001 people... (part II)

Part I.

Let's look at the difference between the everyday level and the process level.

At the everyday level, a company receives a complaint and starts handling it. Then, as part of this process, it reaches an agreement with the customer and decides to close the complaint. Immediately before closing it, someone has to assess the interest or opportunity to take an improvement action to reduce or eliminate the likelihood of the complaint being repeated.

Implementing a true and effective improvement action is not cheap unless you already know the root cause. Implementing a true improvement action involves knowing the root cause, but the root causes are usually hidden under several layers of reality. They have to be investigated, tests need to be made and this consumes scarce resources. So, normally, the right bdecision is not to proceed with an improvement action because the return is not worth it.

At the level of the process, driven by the calendar, someone, normally a team, should look at the set of complaints received, at the big picture, and ask the question, does it make sense to develop one or more actions for improvement? A Pareto diagram may be powerful tool to evidence the big picture and show if there are any relevant priorities for improvement. For example:

In this case, the reason "Design deficiency" is responsible for around 30% of all complaints. The company decided to focus the attention on this topic and found this scenario:

Reason A is responsible for 75% of all complaints generated by "Design deficiency". So, Reason A alone is responsible for 22% of all complaints. Perhaps it is wise, and a good investment to decide to develop an improvement action to remove the root cause (s) behind Reason A.

Who should be part of a team to develop an improvement action to remove the root cause (s) behind Reason A?

It is so different, it is so powerful, it is so revealing, looking into the film, looking into the big picture instead of looking for just a frame. Both are needed, but the latter one is fundamental.