Riding the wind of rebirth

"Then let's change the question..." Li Weigang said, "How did you, Clover, decide to introduce the ISO system?"

"The case of Four Leaf Clover is not enough to illustrate the problem, because we are a new company and don't have to worry about breaking bottles and jars." Zhou Zhi thought for a while and said, "Why don't I take the example of Blue Sky and Sunshine? They were also a military-industrial enterprise in the past, and later transformed into a clean energy enterprise of solar energy and wind energy. In the process of exporting and earning foreign exchange, they encountered Western technical quality requirements, so they made up their minds and embarked on the road of modern product quality management."

"In fact, we don't need to be too obsessed with whether it is ISO or modern. The logic of doing a good job in quality management is very simple, which is to ensure that every link in the production is in full compliance with the technical requirements. As long as this is achieved, there will be no major problems with the final product, right?"

"Yes, but the theory is easy to explain, but difficult to implement." Li Weigang is in a dilemma now.

"Let's put aside the cost issue for now and just talk about how to achieve it." Zhou Zhi said: "To ensure that every link in the production meets the technical requirements, is it really extremely difficult for a producer who is only responsible for one link?"

"Not really. The possibility of scrap in a process is extremely low, at least low enough for managers to tolerate. Otherwise, this person would not be allowed to work, right?"

"It's OK to do it once or twice, but if you do it a thousand or ten thousand times, mistakes are bound to happen."

"So the most primitive quality control system was born." Zhou Zhi said: "During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, large-scale production in various countries began to implement a three-person responsibility system. Some weapons and wall bricks would have the names of the producer, supervisor, and inspector to ensure that the weapons or wall bricks met the quality requirements before entering the warehouse. Once a problem occurred, the responsibility could be traced to each level."

"So from ancient times to the present, as long as quality control is carried out, the production cost will inevitably increase. For example, the Qin Dynasty's weapons production system, in addition to the manufacturing and production personnel, also needs to add a monitoring team and an acceptance team, and also leave their names."

"So there has only been one solution to this problem from ancient times to the present: allocate resources, streamline processes, strengthen supervision, and enforce accountability."

"This is the general approach to solving the problem. In fact, it has been the same since ancient times. Whether it was the Qin State's approach during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, or the production management approach we introduced from the Soviet Union after the founding of the People's Republic of China, or the ISO quality management certification system that is now well known to everyone, they all solve quality control problems from these four aspects."

"The difference between them is actually because as modern production becomes more and more complex, with more and more links, more and more complicated processes, more and more three-dimensional structures, and more and more precise time, management must become more and more refined, more and more professional, more and more scientific, and more and more important."

"As for the so-called modern and traditional, new and old, the underlying logic of management is not much different from that of the ancient times before the Qin Dynasty. The only difference is the sophistication of management and the modernization of management tools."

"The so-called difficulties in restructuring traditional enterprises are actually the resistance we encounter when we intend to achieve precise, professional, scientific and important management work due to the old concepts and systems."

"Let's assume that a project involves 30,000 processes in total. If we can reduce the defective rate of each process that affects the whole to one in 100,000, it seems acceptable, right?"

"But it's totally unacceptable." Zhou Zhi said, "Because according to this standard, after all the processes are combined, the probability of quality problems in the final project will be as high as 30%."

"This is the new challenge that modern production activities bring to quality management, and I believe that the number of processes required for the rocket from manufacturing and filling to launching may be far more than this number." The failure rate of each process was reduced to one in one hundred thousand, but the failure rate of the final product was still as high as 30%. This data allows everyone to intuitively experience the difficulty of quality management of large-scale projects.

Especially for a project like rocket launch, a failure means terrible consequences.

"We must strictly control quality." Li Weigang said with a wry smile, "We have worn out our lips with this remark many times. More and more systems have been formulated, but the problem now is that the more and more complicated the systems are, the more likely it is that people will just deal with things perfunctorily. People are not doing the work, and the systems are not people. The increased time cost cannot be converted into actual results. This is the most painful problem for us."

"Mr. Li, you have seen the crux of the problem." Zhou Zhi said, "Before the restructuring, the Blue Sky Sunshine Group faced the same problem. A lot of systems were formulated, but when it came to implementation, no one was there to implement them. Even the most necessary supervision was just empty words."

"But we must know that this is an abnormal phenomenon, a disease, and if it is a disease, it must be treated immediately, rather than allowing small diseases to accumulate into big ones." Zhou Zhi said: "Under the old system, many abnormal phenomena have become 'common practices' and 'old rules', which is inappropriate in any way."

"There are three reasons why the system cannot be implemented."

"The first is the problem of the system itself. Does it exceed the capabilities of the people who implement it? For example, if a person needs eight hours a day to complete his work, and now he is asked to add two hours to write technical documents, then this technical document will undoubtedly become a formality."

"The second is the issue of supervision. If this technical document is written, but there is no review mechanism, verification mechanism, evaluation mechanism, and assessment mechanism, then the well-written and the poorly-written ones are the same, and the ones written seriously and the ones written perfunctorily are the same. Then this technical document will undoubtedly become a formality."

"The third is the attitude of the participants at every level. If everyone from top to bottom is resistant and opposed to the system, then the work will not be implemented."

"So I think if we know that a system cannot be implemented, or it is just a formality, then we need to immediately review it and study it, find out where the problem occurred, and then optimize and rectify it in a timely manner, rather than just covering it up with a new system."

"If you think the base's systems are already numerous and strict, but there is a problem of too many people and not enough work, then you should set up a committee to review these systems, listen to everyone's reasonable suggestions, and adopt various methods to implement them."

"In the process of helping Blue Sky Sunshine Group introduce the ISO management system, we once discovered an incident that can illustrate the problem." Zhou Zhi said: "According to the Blue Sky Sunshine Group's "Informationized Computer Room Management System", the power supply used in the computer room must be dual-input guaranteed, the computer room must match the computer room electrification drawings, regular inspections must be carried out, and simulated emergency drills must be conducted regularly."

"However, when we used this system to conduct a real simulated emergency drill at the Blue Sky Sunshine Group, we only had to cut off one power line and the entire computer room was completely without power."

"Fortunately, it was just a power switching drill. All the equipment in the computer room was shut down beforehand and the data was backed up. Otherwise, if there was a real power outage, it might have been a technical accident." (End of this chapter)