January 2006

"Quality Focus" - monthly Genesis column

Is Scoring Goals Enough?

The definition of quality...

Welcome to The Canmaker’s new column, “Quality Focus,” a look at quality issues specific to the canmaking industry.  This column is intended to be a focal point for industry information, education and experiences within the rather large domain of “quality” and its particular application to canmaking.  As such, comments, topic suggestions, and submissions of actual case studies are welcome and encouraged. 

Given this is the “kick-off” of the column, the first subject to be covered – or more appropriately, defined - is rather evident: what exactly is “quality?”  Although seemingly an ambiguous question, the answer requires a bit of explaining. 

Webster’s dictionary defines quality – at least in the sense as we will come to view it – as “…a degree of excellence..”  This will serve our purposes well, as now – and in the months to come -  our focus will be upon that defined degree: after all, just how “good” is “good quality?”  Can we elevate the definition from words to quantification?  From speculation and opinion to data and actual quality measures? 

We are in the world of mass production, both canmakers and suppliers.  Canmakers obviously mass-produce the cans, and suppliers support these manufacturing efforts and are therefore, by default, also living the mass-production life. 

In this world we commit to delivering products to our customers: suppliers to canmakers and canmakers to fillers – naturally even suppliers have those that supply them.  We also commit to specifications for the products we produce, but of course physical law comes into play, requiring we cast those specifications as a “range,” “tolerance,” “upper and lower specification limits,” etc.  For many, then, “quality” becomes the ability to consistently mass-produce products within the defined range, or supply equipment and materials to ensure this happens.  In the case of suppliers, it means products used by the canmakers are capable of enabling the canmaker to stay in specification. 

In essence, we believe we score “points” for kicking the ball through the goalposts.  Unfortunately though, the world of quality cannot be likened to this form of specification “football,” which circuitously brings us to a different definition of “quality” that we will maintain within this column: the ability to hit the center of the “goalposts” as close as possible as often as possible.

But how close is close enough?  Or how often is often enough?  Always hitting the target obviously speaks to perfection, but unfortunately we do not live in a perfect world.  Mostly hitting the target is achievable, but how many times do we miss and by how much and what is “acceptable?” 

The answer of course depends upon our customers’ requirements and the cost of poor quality – both out-of-pocket expenditures and resulting warranty costs.  Yes indeed, poor quality does indeed cost money: lots of money.  As we move further into this century it is becoming evident that less-than-stellar quality will cost even more money, given the heated worldwide competition to manufacture all products. 

This leads us then to one other important assumption that will come to underlie this column: eventually only the best-in-class will survive – in any industry.  In the coming issues we will be examining ways to assure that those in the canmaking business – again, both canmakers and suppliers – will be able to rise to the occasion.  Many topics are “on the table,” including Six Sigma, Design for Six Sigma, capability analyses, true Statistical Process Control, structured defect resolution; the list is quite long, so stay tuned as we move forward.