Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs – October, 2016

Welcome to October, 2016 edition of Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs.

We have already taken up the following topics for the familiarisation of different elements of new version of ISO 9001-

• December, 2015: the changes in the Revision of ISO 9001 (:2015)
• January, 2016: Process Approach in 9001:2015
• February, 2016: Risk-Based Thinking in 9001:2015
• March, 2016: Risk-Based Thinking – a general perspective
• April, 2016: Context of the Organization in ISO 9001: 2015
• May, 2016: The Relevant Interested Parties
• June, 2016: Leadership and Commitment.
• July, 2016 : ‘Leadership’ in the Other ISO Management Standards
• August,2016 : Change Management
• September, 2016 : Organizational Knowledge

For the present episode we will look at Control of Human Errors in general, and then move over to how that can possibly be addressed in the implementation ISO 9001: 2015.

Human Errors have been well addressed in the past in the literature relating to fields like safety management or health & medical services management. We have picked up a few representative articles here:

Human Error: Causes and Control – by George A. Peters, Barbara J. Peters –  Detailed, practical, and broad in scope, the book explores the field of human error, including its identification, its probable cause, and how it can be reasonably controlled or prevented.

Human factors: Managing human failures – The challenge is to develop error tolerant systems and to prevent errors from initiating; to manage human error proactively it should be addressed as part of the risk assessment process, where:

• Significant potential human errors are identified,
• Those factors that make errors more or less likely are identified (such as poor design, distraction, time pressure, workload, competence, morale, noise levels and communication systems) – Performance Influencing Factors (PIFs)
• Control measures are devised and implemented, preferably by redesign of the task or equipment

Reducing Human Error on the Manufacturing Floor By Ginette M. Collazo, PhD.– When we investigate quality events, the focus of those investigations rely on explaining what happened in the process and how the product was affected. A human error usually explains the reason for the occurrence of the deviation; nevertheless, the reason for that error remains unexplained and consequently the corrective and preventive actions fail to address the underlying conditions for that failure… Real CAPA effectiveness will be achieved when the number of deviations decreases. not when particular events fail to reoccur.

Minimising human errors in the workplace – Eric Joost – Familiarization with the risks can make an employee feel more comfortable about cutting corners and designing their own way of working, which increases the probability of something going wrong.

As can be expected, not much literature is available yet on this subject w.r.t. its impact in ISO 9001:2015. From what could be searched within reasonable efforts, I have picked up:

Struggling Against Nature – Preventing Human Error in the new ISO 9001 2015 Standard is ppt that was presented by Matt Leiphart at 2016 ISO World Congress and takes a different path in evaluating the requirement.

ISO 9001:2015 Human Factors – Shaun Sayers thinks this requirement, no matter how noble in its intent, is practically unenforceable. My guess is that this will actually be ignored….. (he also) can’t help thinking that the standard might have been better if the aim to prevent human error was also included in the Nonconformity and corrective action clause – ISO 9001:2015 Clause 10.2 – too.

Before the jury is out to come to a verdict on the subject, it would be prudent to wait for some more time and allow fairly large number of organizations to implement the new version to really start detecting some strong trends.

In the meanwhile let us also look at a few interesting video clips:

Human Factors in the Clinical Laboratory: Lessons from Aviation Safety – Patrick Mendenhall, BS

Quality Systems: Managing Human Error and CAPA Effectiveness

Quality Systems: Managing Human Error and CAPA Effectiveness

How Many Ways Can I Screw Up Causes of Human Error

How Many Ways Can I Screw Up Causes of Human Error

Human Error: Human error is inevitable, but you can do a lot to prevent mistakes

Human Reliability Improvement: Reducing Documentation Errors

For the November, 2016 episode, we will take up Auditing in the new versions of these management standards.

We will now turn to our regular sections:

ASQ CEO, Bill Troy in his ASQ’s Influential Voice in October Roundtable takes up ‘How can employers leverage quality to invite innovation?’. The discussion is indeed engrossing while being as simple as it can be.

We now watch two of the latest ASQ TV  episode:

• ISO 9001 Check-in – Standards experts explain key changes to ISO 9001:2015, such as how to understand the term ‘documented information,’ the role of leadership and the emphasis on risk-based thinking. Learn why using some quality tools to demonstrate risk-based thinking might not meet the standard’s requirements.  – To Document, or Not To Document? Standards Connection subscription page Leaders of Change Prove It
• Integrating Management Systems – In this episode of ASQ TV, we will discuss how Annex SL can help ease the complexity of integrating multiple standards, and the steps your organization should take to become integrated. – Quality Progress Article Integrated Management Systems
• Using the Knowledge Interest Survey – Scott Laman, Senior Manager, Quality Engineering and Risk Management, Vascular Division, Teleflex, Inc., explains how the knowledge interest survey allows you to choose appropriate mentors, successors and potentially future high achievers.
• Using the Critical-to-Quality Tree – Chris McMillan, Senior Corporate Performance Analyst, City of Fayetteville, North Carolina, discusses the use of this tool to explain performance measurements to staff outside of the traditional quality department and how the city government is going about introducing quality throughout its systems.
• Using Quality Tools for a More Organized Life – Daniel Zrymiak describes how he uses quality tools to make his life more organized, in the Quality for Life series story.

Jim L. Smith’s Jim’s Gems for the month of September, 2016:

• Statisticians Must Transform – Like other quality professionals, statisticians must add value – In this enlightened age, statisticians and non-statisticians realize tools don’t make improvements, leaders do. To become leaders, statisticians must first understand the basic change that has taken place in the way work is done and grasp how that change demands a clear understanding of the difference between managing work and leading people.
• Now is Your Time to Act – all sorts of new and meaningful happenings await your choice to take action in order for them to come to life.

I look forward to your active participation in enriching the blog carnival as we pursue our journey in exploring the happenings across quality management blogs…………

Note: The images depicted here above are through courtesy of respective websites who have the copyrights for the respective images.