Quality- Half Way to the Wall

Motorola presented a National Quality Day segment several years ago where they discussed “Half Way to the Wall.” It is a pretty neat concept that doesn’t seem to have become cliché, but possibly should.

Summarizing- Initial targets for quality are established by determining current baselines and then cutting the defect rate in half. If you are currently 50% good at something the idea is to move this up to 75%. A 75% you go for 87.5% good. There are several neat points to this system:

1) Fact-Based Decision Making is required. It is cliché to say you can’t make good decisions with bad information. The challenge in this age of TMI (too much information) is deciding what you really need to know and then gathering the information accurately;
2) Initial Gains are relatively much easier than later gains. It is as easy (or easier) to move from 80% to 90% than it is to move from 90% to 95%. The next step to 97.5% is even more challenging. Once defect rates become very low the challenge in keeping them good is not only not slipping back to old ways, but also not allowing new defects to creep in.
3) Marginal Utility (aka Law of Diminishing Returns) also comes into play at a point. The question “at what price success?” has value. The cost of training, test equipment, inspectors or other cures necessary to make small incremental gains just might not be worth it.

These concepts can be and are actively applied to liquid cylinder repairs by West Cryogenics and our clients. One of the most valuable tools used is the ability West has to monitor incoming vacuum levels on previously repaired liquid cylinders. Active use of this information allows for identification of potential issues so we can work together with clients to find root causes and affect solutions. A large percentage of cylinders returned with good vacuums can indicate operational or training issues at the client side. A rise from 2% to 8% “bad vacs” could indicate an issue at the supplier or user side.

One case found that a client’s cylinders were being exposed to excessive levels of cleaning chemicals resulting in high corrosion. Another found that liquid cylinders were too close to a welding or cutting procedure. Sparks from the procedure were melting tiny holes in vacuum rupture disks.

Quality- What is it?

“Trifles make perfection and perfection is no trifle.”
- Michelangelo

Last week provided an opportunity for one of the more pleasant dinner evenings ever. Besides the general joy of being with a large group of gas sales and marketing executives there was also a terrific discussion on the mid-90’s Austin/ Dallas/ San Antonio semiconductor surge. For those less familiar, this was the when the electronics Third Coast was flourishing with the construction of many new fabs for companies like AMD, MOTOROLA, TI, SEMATECH, HITACHI, ST MICROELECTRONICS, and NATIONAL SEMICONDUCTOR. Of equal import for many of us was the great influx of suppliers to the industry such as Applied Materials and Tokyo Electron not to mention the dozens of specialty mechanical and cleanroom contractors, chemical suppliers, and analytical services.

An almost cliché, but largely unmet maxim is: “People don’t buy because they understand. They buy because they feel understood.” This is largely unmet mostly because developing a true understanding of client needs and then actually meeting or exceeding them can be hard work.

Inherent to success in the electronics market rush was the ability to meet the stringent quality demands of the industry. Those of us who prospered found opportunities to go beyond keeping up and actually become drivers of the standards expected for service providers. First, though, we had to come to grips with what was actually needed and what could be done. For many of us, the leap from our normal life to Semiconductor-Grade was a jolt.

Dan Driessen formed Ultrapure & Industrial Services as a division of Driessen Culligan to develop a team focused on the needs and opportunities inherent in the growing markets for semiconductor, electronics and medical device manufacturing. As a novel first step in truly understanding client needs the Ultrapure group set up a series of roundtable discussions with some of the area companies most recognized for formal quality. These included 3-M, Motorola, Sematech, AMD, Huntsman Chemical and The UT Microelectronics Research Center. Over the course of three separate monthly round table events these clients shared their definitions of quality, their perceptions of the industry’s specific needs and the gaps Ultrapure would need to close to become a recognized player.

What these clients had to say definitely upset our homeostasis and created huge doubts regarding both the ability to perform as needed and the ultimate profit to be gained in consideration of costs. Yet, the decision was made in short order to move forward. The next several years proved to be both challenging and rewarding beyond expectations. And a lot of lessons were learned that will benefit us and those we have the opportunity to serve for the rest of our lives.

Last week’s dinner brought up a lot of great memories. It especially helped with connecting the dots to the needs of clients using cryogenic vessels and their service support needs. CryoNews is intended to help meet those needs for both suppliers and users. The underlying themes of all articles in this post are Quality and Best Practices as they relate to meeting Producer, Distributer and User needs and eliminating waste. Your suggestions related to topics that will advance this mission are always appreciated.