Misplacement of responsibilities of the original quality team: The system runs in vain and is disconnected from quality
Before taking office, the function of the quality position in the company completely deviated from the core of "quality guardianship" - the previous staff spent 90% of their energy on the superficial operation of the quality system: such as writing the unrealistic "Quality Manual", "filling in data" to cope with third - party audits, and following the process of "giving prior notice" during internal audits... but never touched the actual links of quality management. For example, in incoming material inspection, they only signed off based on the "qualified reports" provided by suppliers and never went to the warehouse to check the material batches and appearance; on the record sheets of in - process inspections, there were always only the two words "qualified", without real records of key parameters such as workshop temperature and pressure; the finished product shipping inspection has even degenerated into a form of "being signed on behalf of by the production team leader" - the system documents are full of "key control points", but no employee in the workshop knows "which defects will lead to customer complaints". This state of "the system being divorced from reality" has turned the quality position into a "compliance tool" rather than a "goalkeeper" for product quality.
Current situation of quality management after taking over: A fault from "illusory" to "empty"
I just took office, and the original quality personnel left, leaving behind a quality management foundation that was almost in a state of total disarray: there were no statistics on the defect rate for nearly a year, and there were no records of the root - cause analysis of customer complaints even from three months ago. The quality standards for key components only existed in the annexes of the supplier contracts, and the workshop operators couldn't tell the difference between "dimensional tolerance ±0.1mm" and "±0.05mm". The vernier calipers and spectrometers in the inspection room were either out of calibration for half a year or covered with dust because the previous personnel never needed to use these tools to verify "whether the products were really qualified". What's even more fatal is that the whole company had no concept of "closed - loop quality problem management": regarding the burr problem of injection - molded parts last month, no one has followed up on "whether the mold has been optimized" so far. The defective products returned by customers were piled up in the corner of the warehouse, and no one counted "whether it was a problem with the incoming materials or the manufacturing process".
Path dependence of the old model: "Quality concession" under production dominance
The core contradiction in the past lies in the logical inversion of "production with inspection": the production department is both the manufacturer of products and the judge of quality, and inspection has become an "ancillary link" of production. For example, in order to meet the monthly production volume KPI, the workshop will directly skip the "first-piece inspection" and conduct mass production; when defective products appear in the production process, the production team leader will say "fill the quantity for shipment first and rework later", and mix unqualified products into qualified ones; even some senior employees bluntly say "whether the quality is good or not is up to the production supervisor" - this inertia of "putting production volume ahead of quality" has penetrated into every step of daily operations: employees will not actively check product defects because "rushing production is more important than quality"; team leaders will not stop illegal operations because "stopping the production line will deduct performance".
Cognitive barriers of the veteran group: Experience has become a "shield against change"
The most troublesome issue is the mental resistance of senior employees. These long - serving employees who have been deeply involved in the company for 5 - 10 years have long been accustomed to the "convenience" of the old model. When I require that "process inspections should record parameters every two hours", they will complain that "it has never been so troublesome before and it's a pure waste of time". When I require that "non - conforming products must be isolated with red labels", they will refuse on the grounds of "delaying shipments and customers' urgent orders". Even worse, some of them directly retort: "I've been working here for ten years and there has never been any major quality problem. What do you know as a newcomer?" Their "advantage of experience" has become a "resistance to change". The new quality standards are interpreted as "harassment targeted at senior employees", and the new inspection process is regarded as "an unnecessary step that affects production efficiency".
The essence of this situation is the growing pain of the transformation of quality management from "form" to "substance": it is necessary to fill the gaps of what "hasn't been done" in the past, reverse the habit of "not wanting to do it", and break the perception that "experience outweighs standards". Every step requires a precise breakthrough point, and this is exactly the most urgent direction I need at present.