March 11, 2016 | Barb Carr

Error Proofing: Learn Best Practices and Industry Secrets

easier

What is the error proofing here?

 

“Easier than making a mistake” … now that is good Human Engineering!

While listening to a radio commercial recently, I heard the announcer say, “Easier than making a mistake!” As a TapRooT® Root Cause Instructor with a quality and human engineering (Human Factors) background, all that I could think about is mistake-proofing, Poka-yoke.

The concept was formalized, and the term adopted, by Shigeo Shingo as part of the Toyota Production System. It was originally described as baka-yoke, but as this means “fool-proofing” (or “idiot-proofing”) the name was changed to the milder poka-yoke. (From Wikipdia)

Now, I did not learn about Dr. Shigeo Shingo during my Human Factors study, even though a large part of training dealt 100% with design and usability from products, to controls and to user graphic user interfaces. On the flip side, Human Factors and Usability was rarely discussed during my Lean Six Sigma certification either, even though Poka-yoke was covered.

Why are two major interactive topics such as Human Factors and Poka-yoke kept in isolation, very dependent on where and what you study? Simple, shared best practices and industry secrets are not always the norm.

Where can you learn about both topics? In San Antonio, Texas during our TapRooT® Summit Week August 1-5.

In the pre-summit 2-Day TapRooT® Quality Process Improvement Facilitator Course, we cover the error of making weak preventative or corrective action items that are not based on the actual root causes found and not optimizing and understanding mistake-proofing that will impact your success in continuous process improvements.

For those that need a deeper understanding of why mistake-proofing should be considered, you should look into signing up for the 2-Day Understanding and Stopping Human Error Course.

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Root Cause Analysis
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