Adonis Diaries

Article #28, December7, 2005

“How do you perceive the inspection job to mean?”

Inspection in engineering has a narrow meaning that connotes quality control of physical products.

It might be viewed as a statistical process in production to keep physical errors in the manufactured products within acceptable ranges with subsequent determination of an inspector or production manager of whether the production mechanism satisfies certain quality control specifications.

It might be understood as a method for inspecting individual items whether the task is paced as in conveyor belts or the pacing is under control of the inspector and his own rate of work.

The concept of inspection might also be studied from a Human Factors organizational perspective of the personal qualities of inspectors and the work pressures from individual workers or groups trying to influence his decision for refusing batches of products.

In this perspective, inspection is implicitly of people; inspection decisions about a man’s work directly reflected upon him and thus the resentment associated with the age, skills, gender and professional behavior of the inspector.

Inspectors are expected not to be impaired in their eyesight, auditory and tactual judgments and be highly trained and knowledgeable about quality standards.

An inspector must have opinions about the working conditions, how workers are paid when defects are found, method of payment of the inspector and number of break time, general environment in quality of lighting, noise and temperature, organizational factors of isolation, interruptions, monotony and decision pressures from foremen and supervisors, calibration at interval of inspectors’ norms or their expectations in rate of defects, pre-conceived ideas of accuracy resulting from deterioration in physical or mental abilities and lack of agreement on quality.

Is inspection the task of a single person for a phase in the production process or should it be an organization within the administration having responsibility for the total control of quality starting from the design concept for the foreseeable errors, risks and safety, usage of the product not intended for, raw materials, subcontracted parts, manufacturing, packaging, recall, marketing deficiencies and customers’ complaints because quality is finally in the customer eyes and mind?

Should an inspector be part of the team in the production process or independent associated with a specific inspection organization?

Some companies do not take inspection seriously and most of the times assign this task to employees about to retire who in turn perceive their new assignment as a downgrading in their responsibilities.

Some companies are ready to sacrifice quality in order to maintain a steady flow in the conveyer belt; for example it is well known that cars produced on Mondays and Fridays are fraught with systematic defects because on these days novices replace the high rate of absentee trained employees.  The fact is since weekly checks are paid on Thursdays it encourage trained workers to extend their vacation from Friday to Tuesday.  Failing to show up on Friday and Monday the work force is altered which condition the administration learn to cope with as best it can.   In this case, companies allocate expense funds to repairing returned products through warranties.