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Hi All Enclosing an article I came across which supports the concept that Zero defect is achievable; how it is achievable? Intelligent Approach to Zero defect manufacturing.docx Zero defects basically works on two premises: 1. Defects reduction 2. Waste elimination With a proactive approach right from the beginning of the process; continuous monitoring - evaluating - implementing, one can definitely achieve a stage of zero defect. It may take a couple of cycles...to assess, to reform...to ultimately reach a stage of zero defect. One cannot perpetually have defects in a system which is put through stringent checks and has well-controlled processes and default detecting mechanism.

Against:- Zero defect is a Nirvana stage. When there is no waste, no unwanted activities in process of making a product. No matter how much money you invest, there will always be some waste generated/ some activity that is a not adding any value to the product. You take any organization with world class equipment,processes, technologies. They are still struggling to achieve Zero Defect, because it is practically impossible. I am not telling that Organization should stop working to achieve zero defect. Considering "Zero defect" as a concept is brilliant. It motivates and drives people for continuous improvement. If Zero defect is possible why do organization struggle to achieve 6sigma level. i.e 3.4 DPMO. why don't they target higher sigma level where there is 0 DPMO. six sigma is only one aspect of Zero Defect

Hi Atul You said rightly, well explained example, I would like to add in this ZD is the way that we are doing interpretation of it, change from individual to individual, organization to organisations... We can achieve it

Hi Sathya, So, you mean to say that out of 10 flight landings on a given day, we get one crash per day on a regular basis, because human can go wrong? Everyday, one patient dies of cardiac arrest when he had gone for a simple tonsillectomy procedure? Never, with regular practice, frequent upgradation of the system in terms of knowledge, technological advancements, etc, the errors are at the zero level. With continuous monitoring, application of process maps in order to eliminate the waste and minimise the defects, the zero defect concept is possible.

Hi Vastu, 100% right.

The producer risk or type I error occurs when a true null hypothesis is rejected whereas the consumer risk or type II error occurs when a false null hypothesis is not rejected.Increase or decrease of one type error affects inversely on other type.But to control both together depends on sample size which is sometimes difficult to increase or decrease for a given situation.

Hi Sumantha, thanks for bringing up your experience. Even in your statement, u had mentioned when it was trial the error had happened and not nowadays. That's what we call it as continuous improvements. In design for six sigma (DFSS), most of the organisations would implement the design as a pilot study in sample group, confirm the results, create prototype and then go for bulk manufacturing if there is no or minimal waste. Also, as rightly said by Atul, variations are always identified and solved using six sigma methodology for any process if you have heard. If any organisation wants to build high in market, then the opportunity for improvements is made visible to them by the teams internally, which is called "KAIZEN".

Type 2 error or consumer risk error is very useful in determining sample size. Power and sample size are important and are widely used in our lives. If the pharmaceutical company wants to prove that the medicine is right they have to determine the sample size. Suppose anyone is down with fever and the doctor tells you that the medicine is 99.9% effective, you may ask doctor as to how many patients were considered in the experiment and at what confidence interval. So both the consumer and producer risk can be reduced by increasing sample size. (Obviously increasing sample size will increase the cost of inspection and this is not easy many times). So it is not always true that reducing consumers risk will increase producers risk.

Hi Sumantha As Atul said rightly about defects and defective cause that 5M and one E. These are some causes of defective and to control variation in these. SUMANTHA you also mentioned that now days it doesn't happen anymore, because they have rectified the problem, thats what every organisation doing and they found a solution so that no such issues repeat in future because they want to delight their customers a d they know they can achieve zero defects and solve the problem of money withdrawn and other issues. Every organisation is doing continous improvement and that's the approach to achieve zero defects.

Hi Sir, Yes. In terms of value, what is considered today is not value tomorrow due to tech advancements. That's why we require a team who can proactively work upon the market advancements and incorporate changes to the system wherever required. Operational excellence or process excellence team should also work as a change leader and any organisation should welcome the change upcoming for the growth of the organisation. Also, if you see any business, that will not have very frequent updates in the system. Any business would undergo process maturity levels and then optimize.

Well I think, the question is whether zero defect is achievable or not. So what six sigma following companies are doing to keep their band values after sell, is that really gets counted? So, once again I will firm my stand - zero defect is almost impossible to maintain real life situation.

Zero defects is achievable: My view is Zero defect is achievable one. Zero defects is a concept that mentions that Defects are not acceptable and Do things Right at the very First Time. Involvement of the Top Level management to the Bottom level workers, Rigid Error Proof Systems, Tight Inspection of the Products & continuous improvement are the possible methods to achieve Zero Defects. Zero defects concept also involves the Cost of the error Proofing system & their maintenance.. If the Top management is mainly focused on Zero Defects & the Cost is secondary then it will be a Great idea. Similarly in a Company there are some Zero defect Lines & it is being achieved in those lines....

ZD was conceptualized as a management methodology to continuously reduce and work towards eliminating all types of wastes in an organization. Obviously the idea is to reduce overall costs without compromising Quality. It has not specified any limit, hence there is tendency to for the literal implication of zero defect. Many fundamental disciplines need to be understood and complied across organization and imbibed into the org culture to drive this program. Many companies have embarked on this journey without the due detailing and ended up seeing costs go up. So, it is not just ensuring a defect free output, but balancing all processes to operate optimally and efficiently. It was many years later that the concept of Six Sigma came up with a quantification of the defect levels, and as we know, it is greater than zero. So if zero defect was literally "zero" defect program, why should the world move 'backwards' to a program that defines a higher rate of defect?

Everyone has brought out great points which deserve to be respected. The passion to believe that 'Zero Defect' is NOT an impossibility is very encouraging. However, prior to this debate, the question was initially asked as a Yes / No question with no conditions and no room for explanations or deeper interpretations - "Is Zero Defect achievable?". All the answers that support this have some conditions attached., viz. it comes with a cost, it is possible with sufficient planning, could be done with mistake proofing, it is a management concept etc. etc. I am a strong supporter of the zero defect thought process, but when it comes to answering this question unconditionally, I would maintain a "no". No quality standard is complete without a "corrective action" clause. Big brands do have well defined customer service clauses that include warranty services and product recall procedures. Inspection and rework lines are built in even the best of production lines. Robust design and Mistake proofing techniques have greatly helped in improving efficiencies and reducing human dependencies and thus reduced errors. Even then, it is hard to find a 100% mistake proofing for all processes in a production line or a service industry. Even a 7 sigma process is termed as 'Near Perfection', but still not perfect! All of us know that the normal distribution will touch the X axis only at infinity! When we buy a product, say a Television set, we expect it to perform defect free for a reasonable period of time. In a large population of TV sets from highly reputed manufacturer, the defect rate is expected to be extremely low, but certainly it is still not zero. You may visit the nearest service center for any product to find out! Yet for those small portion of affected customers, what is considered very important is the prompt response and remedy with least inconvenience. When we say zero defect, it cannot be even one in a million. It is very important to encourage the philosophy of 'zero defect', and continuously strive towards it, but one has to be very careful before making a claim of achievement. An organization might do its best to overcome most of the factors that are controllable, but there are factors that may not be controllable and it wouldn't be practical to build a factor of safety for all such factors. We should not permit over complacency to set in that would come in the way of planning good remedial and recovery plans, for which failures need to be anticipated and mitigation plans built in. Many safety systems that necessarily may not prevent failures, either due to product or due to external factors, but help in reducing severity of the impact in an 'unlikely' event. Just as in an FMEA exercise, we tend to prioritize the actions based Severity, Occurrence and Detection, but may not necessarily eliminate all possibilities 100%. The "Zero defect" thought process will continue to be key driver for continuous improvement, and would help to intelligently understand and manage the variabilities more proactively to provide products and services that keep up with ever revising Quality and Reliability expectations.

I would like to explain Mr Venugoapl that zero defect is a concept which is used in lean manufacturing and continuous improvement or to do any process lean. Already I mentioned that it depends how we are interpreting it, it depends on situation to situation what we are working for. For some people it is customer satisfaction for some it is delivering parts on time, for example if I talk about pizza delivery boy, for him to deliver pizza within 30 minutes will be counted as zero defect, it is different thing that how he is delivering pizza but they are on their words to deliver pizza within 30 minutes, it's upto pizza makers that what type of delivery options they are using. Talking about final output it is also different for different segments. In car Manufacturing industry if they are seeing final product then they can expect the results as I explained above and food industry we can see the taste of pizza how customer is behaving whether he is delighted or not. Although you have prepared pizza with all your standards still customer is not happy then we can not say that they are achieving zero defect. Because for them customer satisfaction also important. And it is not possible to get no defect from a process but it depends how much we want and for how long, as I explained earlier that if I am achieving my targets means zero defect., because my process doing well thats why I am achieving it. For example a production company has a target of producing 500 units per 8 hours and if they are achieving it consistently means they are working on zero defect concept. Zero defects means doing things first time right.

FOR. "Zero Defect" is a work culture that an enterprise may like to inculcate in the workforce, emphasising that defects are not acceptable and everything should be done “first time right". The implementation of this philosophy depends on: 1. Operational Definition of Zero defect as perceived by the management 2. Efforts taken by the management to communicate the same and ensure it is understood by one and all 3. Time and Money invested by the management in process design and checks, employee training and so on to build and drive the culture.

I agree with Ms. Reena And Ms. Kavitha but I would like to add some points to explain more for Mr Venugopal as I am not agree with you because here we are not talking about zero defect in general. We are talking about zero defect in industries, services sector, telecom sector, manufacturers, car manufacturers, vehicle manufacturers and many more. For any organisation business performance and profit making and satisfaction of customer is the main goal. If any organisation has aimed to achieve some financial goal with satisfaction of customer and if they achieve it then we can say that they have zero defects. It depends on how we are interpreting it and where we are applying it. I agree with Ms Kavitha that it involves a lot of cost and previous planning also. If we talk about car Manufacturing industry then here we have different methods to meausre JD Power customer service index, customer satisfaction index and Initial quality study. For example if I give example for Honda City, it has IQS score on first position since last more than 10 years and Honda aims to be number one in IQS study, and Honda is achieving it continously year after year, although they have invested huge to achieve and maintain consistency on first position in its segment, here we can say that Honda is achieving zero defects because Honda aimed to be number one and achieving it also.

There are many situations where we really require zero defect. like already pointed out "Surgical set up" , or a "plane landing". The question here is not about zero defect required or not.. It is about "Is zero defect achievable?" When we say zero defect does it mean: 1. Absolutely no defect from a process... for how much duration? For ever? 2. Are we drawing some upper and lower tolerance on % defects or DPMO. and so long as the defect rate falls with in a service level agreement, are we going to accept it as zero defects? 3. if we are talking about a particular product, on which multiple defects can manifest,... when we say zero defect, are we referring to the non-occurrence of a particular defect or do we mean that no defect type should occur? 4. Are we referring to only the final output? Are we ok to have inprocess defects, but the final outcome is expected to be zero defect? 5. When we say zero defect, are we ignoring other factors like delivery time, processing cost, productivity etc? WHAT IS ZERO DEFECT? DEFINE IT.

At first go,zero defect looks impractical.We cant collect any example from the industries known or around where u can present evidence of zero defect.So thoughfully why the concept of zero defect would have been originated.But nothing is without reason and zero defect do have its evidence in aviation and space industries.Any miss from zero defect in such industries leads to damages which categorically are called critical or major in the world of quality as human life is at stake.And when we have industries having zero defect ,then for sure it can be applied in other industries as well provided we drop a little cushion of grant.

Hi All, If you ask zero defect is achievable or not? my answer would be "Yes". As rightly said by Reena and Vastupal, with high quality assurance at the time of project start and effective planning makes the zero defect possible. Again, if you ask me zero defect at the very normal or affordable price is achievable, then answer is no. It is achievable only with high cost involving technology & tools like Mistake proofing, standard work,etc, will helps us detect defects, correct it and send it to customer. Zero defect is again possible, if Perfection is achieved through constant practice. For eg, In surgical set up, a senior most doctors out of practice, he is able to achieve perfection in surgeries that they do. Zero defect is achievable in a way we perceive things. Zero defect is something that doing the things first time right. Hence, in a practical situations and theoretically zero defect is not possible. and if high cost is involved in detecting and correcting defects then, zero defect is possible. simply to say, it depends on the situation we want to explore.

Looks impractical yet I would support 'Zero defect is achievable'...as Mr.Vashisth rightly said, "it is the way we perceive zero defects". With effective planning and quality control measures in the beginning of the process till the final delivery, defects can be effectively mitigated. If whatever planned is delivered with satisfactory results within given time frame, we assume it is done with zero defects. The debatable point here is whether it is desirable...the kind of stringent measures n stress it involves, should it be practically realized?

FOR I would like to say that zero defect is achievable but it depends on how we are doing its interpretation. Theoretically and practically it is not possible to achieve zero defect. But I would say zero defect means get things right at first time. So we can achieve zero defect. For example if I talk about to finish the project. During finishing of project we have so many steps which are having their own deadlines and conditions. If we are completing all steps in time with all requirements and finish our project on time we can say that there was no defect because whatever has been planned earlier is achieved now. Also lean manufacturing and continous improvement focus on preventive maintainance to reduce and eliminate waste activities so that we can achieve our targets.