Great comments, and I think you have hit on one of the main problems.
In the scenarios you describe, QC seems to be the key issue. While the worker with "creative control" may be able to produce a "better" product, it is a less consistent product.
ISO certification and QC became common in this country in the 1980's when the auto manufacturers, among others, almost went out of business. Recall the 1981 Plymouth Horizon, the "poster child" for everything wrong with US production. Nearly everyone was buying foreign at that point, the US automakers could not make a reliable vehicle. US makers adopted Deming's production methods (which he had tried to get them to adopt decades earlier) that had proved so successful in Japan. Sadly, companies still don't seem to fully adopt Deming's management methods - and the system works much better when all the pieces are included.
Following ISO practices produces consistent products - good or bad, they are all very nearly the same. If a company is ISO 9000 certified and produces a "perfect" product, essentially every item produced will be identical and "perfect".
If that skilled worker makes an improvement or change, though, the product is no longer "perfect", it is defective and must be reworked, because it is different than the standard.
Where those skilled, experienced workers contribute in most companies is in product design and development and CQI - Continuous Quality Improvement. CQI is the process of constantly looking for better ways to make and improve a product, and results in changes to the ISO certified process to implement those changes in every item produced.
Sadly, there are not enough of those skilled, experienced workers to go around - there is a severe shortage. As that generation fades away, there are fewer people to train and mentor the less experienced workers. Left unchecked, the final result is an inability to manufacture.
Expert databases such as the one you described to capture and preserve expert knowledge are one solution to this issue. If implemented well, they can out-perform a human - but the problem is developing a good implementation. Poorly implemented expert systems are useless or worse, and it sounds like the one you described might not have been well implemented.
In the scenarios you describe, QC seems to be the key issue. While the worker with "creative control" may be able to produce a "better" product, it is a less consistent product.
ISO certification and QC became common in this country in the 1980's when the auto manufacturers, among others, almost went out of business. Recall the 1981 Plymouth Horizon, the "poster child" for everything wrong with US production. Nearly everyone was buying foreign at that point, the US automakers could not make a reliable vehicle. US makers adopted Deming's production methods (which he had tried to get them to adopt decades earlier) that had proved so successful in Japan. Sadly, companies still don't seem to fully adopt Deming's management methods - and the system works much better when all the pieces are included.
Following ISO practices produces consistent products - good or bad, they are all very nearly the same. If a company is ISO 9000 certified and produces a "perfect" product, essentially every item produced will be identical and "perfect".
If that skilled worker makes an improvement or change, though, the product is no longer "perfect", it is defective and must be reworked, because it is different than the standard.
Where those skilled, experienced workers contribute in most companies is in product design and development and CQI - Continuous Quality Improvement. CQI is the process of constantly looking for better ways to make and improve a product, and results in changes to the ISO certified process to implement those changes in every item produced.
Sadly, there are not enough of those skilled, experienced workers to go around - there is a severe shortage. As that generation fades away, there are fewer people to train and mentor the less experienced workers. Left unchecked, the final result is an inability to manufacture.
Expert databases such as the one you described to capture and preserve expert knowledge are one solution to this issue. If implemented well, they can out-perform a human - but the problem is developing a good implementation. Poorly implemented expert systems are useless or worse, and it sounds like the one you described might not have been well implemented.
Comment