Steve,
Changing the predominant culture of any company, department, corporation, etc. is probably the most daunting task anyone can take on.
I keep a quotation directly across from my desk so that I can read it every day. It goes
"There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in it's success, than to take the lead in a new order" Machiavelli.
I'm the QA Manager for a board shop. The major part of my position of course, requires that I change the predominant culture from one of acceptable yield loss, rework, blame and unaccountability to the extreme opposites as well as establish and maintain a QMS that meets 9002 requirements.
I've been successful at this company, as with others. For me, the secret to this change of culture is persistence, persistence, persistence, persistence. The training program I have developed here follows that simple philosophy. Training is hardly ever performed in a classroom here. What is written in our procedures is "continual, daily training shall be performed" And I've made it my responsibility to follow up continually, and daily with team leaders, supervisors, and managers to ensure this is being performed.
You can try to smash the culture in immediate ways, but this will most certainly lead to resentment from the workforce, and frustration for you. Or you can take small, daily steps that over time will be far more effective.
Your situation; however, has a twist or two. Were I in your shoes I would ask myself, if we are producing product at a higher quality level than IPC Class II, why take a backward step, why not find a way to maintain that level (MIL-SPEC) in the most cost effective manner. While I agree QA should not reject product that meets specifications, they should have the responsibility and freedom to communicate these process conditions that may eventually lead to nonconforming product. In my opinion, dull solder joints should be flagged, the process producing these conditions should be addressed and the condition or variable causing it should be eliminated from the system.
Have I rambled enough? Well I hope this helps you a little.
Good luck
Franklin
-----Original Message-----
From: Stephen R. Gregory <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tuesday, August 03, 1999 1:29 PM
Subject: [TN] Culture Changing...any ideas?
>Hey ya'll!
>
>Well, it's cooled down to a balmy 90-degrees here, and boy are my sweat
>glands happy!...hehehe
>
>But email ain't to talk about my how much I perspire, but about changing
>cultures. One of my "opportunities" as presented to me here is figuring out
>how to reduce costs (aren't we all trying to do that?).
>
>One of the things that I've noticed since I've been here, is that there is
>that everything is looked at through MIL-SPEC shaded glasses...and I've found
>that boards we were building under IPC 610 class-II standards were being
>touched-up un-neccessarily. Things that are maybe only a process indicator,
>but acceptable, are being reworked. For one example, dull solder joints that
>were caused because an active OA flux was left on longer than it should have
>been before cleaning has made the joints look dull. QA won't accept the board
>until all the solder joints are sparkling. I'll fix the problem about the
>operators leaving the flux on too long before washing the board, but you
>still don't need to touch every joint up! But I sure couldn't convince QA of
>that...and so on it goes.
>
>Part of the history here is that they've always done MIL-SPEC work here, and
>a lot of that work isn't as plentiful as it once was. One reason I fully
>believe is because of the costs associated with building product to that
>level of quality. At my last company we built product that was going on the
>space shuttle, but yet it only needed to meet 610 Class-II standards. It
>wasn't any guidance stuff or anything like that, but even NASA is relaxing
>things a bit.
>
>Class-II product is something new here, and I think I'm gonna have my hands
>full trying to get people out of that MIL-SPEC culture...it'll be hard to
>make any money doing things that way with the difference in the margins
>between MIL-SPEC and commercial class-II product..
>
>Any suggestions anybody?
>
>Thanks ya'll!
>
>-Steve Gregory-
>
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