12 hours ago, Vastupal Vashisth said:

Hi Rajesh

Thanks for your input 

Sir you mentioned that it will help in minimising variation,  what elements a company wants and where does this minimum variation leads to?it leads to deliver good quality products or to achieve targets as per decided. 

Need to say Zero Defect is different for everyone, for example a production department has a target of machine efficiency of 85%,so for for the department zero defect is to achieve this 85%efficiency. If its not done why we using all techniques and there is no point remaining if improvements not done. We focus to achieve our target if 85% because we know can achieve it,  it may be possible some breakdown happens, May be due to tool,  due to machine,  but we try to reduce all and try to achieve target of 85%,in this each and every supportive depth has their own target of downtime within 15%, so every department tries to maintain that and yes it has happened many times that production department achieves it's target otherwise delivery would have been failed and overall delay in all process. 

So for production department achievung the target is zero defect so zero defect is the way how we are doing interpretation of it. It doesn't mean that hive 100% in all cases,  it changes from situation to situation,  like in above example if any says he wants 100% efficiency of machine bit everyone knows it can't be possible 100% because there are losses involved directly or indirectly that's why targets are fixed which is achievable and some challenging.  Same case with organisations targets of their revenue generation and profit making,  they also decide on past experience and future expectation. So for them to achieve that target is ZD. 

And that's the point sir who would want a defective outcome so to stop defective outcome everyone will do some improvements and will ensure to deliver good products and delivery of good products leads to give good results and to meet targets as per decided. 

Another example I would like to give,  a manufacturing company has a rejection target of 0.3% so for the company to achieve this target will be treated as zero defect in their own language. Company will do process improvement,  try to maintain processes and many more to chic ethics because company knows that it can be achieved. 

In summary I would like to say zero defect is achievable and it is defined by everyone in their own language an depends how we are doing interpretation of it. This is possible by process re engineering,  continous improvements,  lean techniques an d much more... And sir,   it is the demand of current industries  setup to give best results and to achieve decided targets and to upgrade according to time to sustain in market. Nothing is going to achieve by making only desires to achieve of any thing. 

Few things i want to mention. Reiterating what i told earlier .

First of all the term Zero-defect is a motivational technique of management to do process improvement and in the process, minimise variation and try to achieve first time right. My point of contention is that we cannot achieve 'zero' defects in reality.

 

Second thing is that, zero defect cannot vary from situation to situation as you specify. In that case, we are setting the SLA or target range which is the capability of the process that we operate. So even before we try to achieve the 100%, we say that we cannot achieve zero defects!! Why are we focusing on 85% efficiency ? Does it mean that its a limitation on the system , or is it the maximum capability of the process designed? If its the latter, then straight away we say zero defects cannot be achieved. If its the former, then technically speaking we cannot achieve zero defect, but we can find whether we are able to achieve that 85%. But we need to tell why that limitation is there.  Suppose if customer is providing a specification as 95% , then if we are able to achieve that , then in that case also , we cannot say zero defects achieved. For instance, we have a new customer who is expecting 95% defect-free delivery of a software application, whereas the service provider provides a 98% defect-free software. The customer would still gleefully accept it though zero defect cannot be still achieved.    

 

A key point am trying to make is , if the voice of the process is only capable enough to 85% (in this case), then we can conclude that zero defects is straight-away not achievable.

Hope this answers your queries.

 

Fyi. I quoted the objective of Zero defect - when i mentioned about the "desires" - its not my desire but the desires of the management that wanted the process improvement through this zero concept, as seen in those URLs.  

9 hours ago, R Rajesh said:

Few things i want to mention. Reiterating what i told earlier .

First of all the term Zero-defect is a motivational technique of management to do process improvement and in the process, minimise variation and try to achieve first time right. My point of contention is that we cannot achieve 'zero' defects in reality.

 

Second thing is that, zero defect cannot vary from situation to situation as you specify. In that case, we are setting the SLA or target range which is the capability of the process that we operate. So even before we try to achieve the 100%, we say that we cannot achieve zero defects!! Why are we focusing on 85% efficiency ? Does it mean that its a limitation on the system , or is it the maximum capability of the process designed? If its the latter, then straight away we say zero defects cannot be achieved. If its the former, then technically speaking we cannot achieve zero defect, but we can find whether we are able to achieve that 85%. But we need to tell why that limitation is there.  Suppose if customer is providing a specification as 95% , then if we are able to achieve that , then in that case also , we cannot say zero defects achieved. For instance, we have a new customer who is expecting 95% defect-free delivery of a software application, whereas the service provider provides a 98% defect-free software. The customer would still gleefully accept it though zero defect cannot be still achieved.    

 

A key point am trying to make is , if the voice of the process is only capable enough to 85% (in this case), then we can conclude that zero defects is straight-away not achievable.

Hope this answers your queries.

 

Fyi. I quoted the objective of Zero defect - when i mentioned about the "desires" - its not my desire but the desires of the management that wanted the process improvement through this zero concept, as seen in those URLs.  

Hello Rajesh

I would like you to please go through all previous replies on the topic for clear understanding of the debate as well as topic.  

And I would like to say yes,  ZD changes from situation to situation,  it's the way that how we are doing interpretation of it.  I already mentioned about this and lot many examples. 

About 85%efficiency that is defined by us, and if a machine can produces and designed for maximum production of 15 products per minute and there is no chance that anyone can demand even 16 products per minute because it is designed to get only 15and yes to achieve that 15 will be treated as ZD. 

You mentioned that a customer wants 95%defects free and you are giving 98%. He will be delighted that's great but I would like to say who will demand only 95% defect free.  All will need 100% defect free.  You are saying software, suppose that software is used in cars for display panel and your expectations is 95 but getting 98,you are saying you will accept 2 defective out of 100 and accept and Install this software in two cars and these will give definitely trouble to customer and I am sure you will not be agree to buy that car if that software not working car will not be able to start of doing anything. 

So sir,  I would like to say customer will want always defect free products and yes it is achievable practically possible.  I would request you to please go through previous replies of all the people for clear understanding rather than Internet urls.

13 hours ago, Vastupal Vashisth said:

Hello Rajesh

I would like you to please go through all previous replies on the topic for clear understanding of the debate as well as topic.  

And I would like to say yes,  ZD changes from situation to situation,  it's the way that how we are doing interpretation of it.  I already mentioned about this and lot many examples. 

About 85%efficiency that is defined by us, and if a machine can produces and designed for maximum production of 15 products per minute and there is no chance that anyone can demand even 16 products per minute because it is designed to get only 15and yes to achieve that 15 will be treated as ZD. 

You mentioned that a customer wants 95%defects free and you are giving 98%. He will be delighted that's great but I would like to say who will demand only 95% defect free.  All will need 100% defect free.  You are saying software, suppose that software is used in cars for display panel and your expectations is 95 but getting 98,you are saying you will accept 2 defective out of 100 and accept and Install this software in two cars and these will give definitely trouble to customer and I am sure you will not be agree to buy that car if that software not working car will not be able to start of doing anything. 

So sir,  I would like to say customer will want always defect free products and yes it is achievable practically possible.  I would request you to please go through previous replies of all the people for clear understanding rather than Internet urls.

Hi Vastupal Vashisth,

Bit amused with this statement. Bursting into laughter on seeing this. Would not be in a position to debate this much if i dont know about what am talking!! Am not even talking about ZD changing from situation to situation. A defect will be defined by the respective team/process owner . Obviously there is no two opinion.

 

85% efficiency - designed by you as service provider ? - i said that as voice of the process. If its the maximum limit (which i said as limitation) then customer would see which system can provide better value. When we talk about the maximum capability on a system with limitation, its about the customer acknowledging the limitation and how we arrive at a defect free system. Thats what i was referring to in a different way.

 

W.r.t my 95 % defects free example, i was quoting a different point to portray that even beyond that if we achieve also , still we would be deemed missing zero defects. No customer would like to have a defective product/service(i stressed on this in my earlier chat).Now let me say where these scenarios can come to quell your doubts:

First of all this is a target range (SLA) customers think can suit them because,

1. Probably a pilot version of the software is rolled out to limited users and the customers want to see how the product looks like and they put focus on how the application behaves and defect is put on the back-burner.
2. New Product (innovation) being created which is not in the market and as there is no baseline to make a comparison , the target set internally by mgmt is to this level - Allowance of mistakes upto 5%
3. This could be a target of the customers in User Advanced Testing (UAT) environment before the software goes LIVE.
4. When we say defects, it not need be showstopper, it can be "cosmetic" changes which the customer may be ok to that.It could be look and feel , alignment issue ,etc.,..

 

This should answer your query i suppose.

 

In my earlier comments, i requested you to visit those internet URLs to show how zero defect is being articulated there to buttress(suppport) my views and nothing else. Not sure why you are trying to pull others to support for this. Probably you got my intent wrong and hence this looks odd.

FOR – A lot of answers indicate that we need to know “what is the definition of defect”, which is a key to this question’s answer. There are some answers which also quote some example e.g. Karthik Mudliar has mentioned an example of a USB slot, Vastupal mentioned that an ATM machine will not accept a card inserted the wrong way, likewise a sim can be inserted only in a certain way etc. Some other examples could be data services automatically being severed after reaching a certain limit (if the customer does not want to be charged for exceeding the limit), a work flow not allowing a request to be sent for further approvals without department head approvals, and many more.

 

The best response in the “FOR” category is that of Vastupal, as he has brought out the definition aspect and also shared a few examples (though in two different responses), which only makes his passion for his point stand out.

 

AGAINST - Some of the answers also provide examples how companies or processes supposed to operate at high level of performance also have failures. Reminder – the question did not ask if it is possible for every process to be zero defect.

The best response in the “AGAINST” category is that of Venugopal. He has asked some very pertinent questions.

 

The debate has also brought out some finer nuances such as the cost for going after zero defect could be high, but can that possibly be offset by the reduced rework and COPQ. Well done, Excellence Ambassadors!