The present contains nothing more than the past.
Corey Graham
Quality Strategist | Manufacturing Quality Leader | Problem Solving Specialist | Career Coaching - Helping people in quality navigate their professional growth.
Bergson’s quote is very interesting. The present contains nothing more than the past. This is true in just about all situations. When speaking of manufacturing quality, it is true 99.9% of the time.
Often in quality we spend a lot of time analyzing historical data and we get a very unique perspective of the situational health of the organization. Ideally problem solving with historical data seems like it should be a fairly straightforward approach, but we get it wrong more than not in the problem solving process.
Often the reason is due to poor root cause analysis. We get caught focusing on a symptom that we are familiar with and to some degree have a solution. Even though history has shown that this approach hasn’t worked in the past, we stay the course.
How many times have you looked back at historical data and seen the same issues plaguing your manufacturing environment?
The present contains nothing more than the past.
Because we choose not to deep dive into pass performance we repeat the process of less than premier performance. Because we look at historical data the same way we always have we see the same things, and those things are not the solution.
The answers are always there. We just need a present tense approach to historical data analysis. V-lookups and pivot tables aren’t going to get us there. Complex formulated excel spread sheets that only a few mega minds in the organization can understand isn’t the answer. We need to implement smarter, more sophisticated tools in our organizations. It should be easy to see where the problems are.
Think about internet marketing companies, or web based companies. They live or die by the data. Data analytics are the life blood of the online community. The complexity of the algorithms behind the data collection and analysis is mind boggling,but yet at the same time are easy and simple to use.
If you have ever dabbled in online business you know what I am referring to, yet in the manufacturing arena, understanding the data is becoming more and more complicated. Again history has shown this does not work, but yet we get more complex instead of simplifying things.