Quality Assurance and COVID-19!
By applying the principles, tools and wisdom of traditional Quality Assurance, We can learn and gain insight to the current world's pandemic, Covid-19. Dr. W. Edward Deming has given us the means to apply the principles of "CONTROL" to any "SYSTEM." If we think of the world health norms as the "SYSTEM," we can then begin to apply controls that would give us early warnings and mitigation avenues to pursue. We will apply just three QA Tools and Techniques to see how they could just be a little help gaining "CONTROL" of a such a serious and worldwide crisis in the future.
DATA ANALYSIS
This simple run chart shows the spread of the CONVID-19 virus in various countries. By simple taking the first few months of data and computing Shewhart control limits, we can clearly see that China was the first country "out of control" way before the spread to the world. The second country "out of control" was Italy. According to the mandates of control, management, in this case, Governments should begin implementing Corrective Actions on the Variation of the data. This would have a least given us a head start on mitigation methods. Let's take a look at the forces that were identified by Dr. Kaoru Ishakawa, head of the Japanese Union of Scientific Engineers, in 1950 and quantified in Western QA by Dr. Deming.
The "DEMING" FORCES
MACHINES MATERIALS PEOPLE ENVIRONMENT METHODS MEASUREMENT
Dr. W. Edwards Deming
The "Interaction of Forces" affect ALL processes and thus affect all SYSTEMS. Focusing in on each force helps us to analyze the SYSTEM to see where the "Special" causes of variation are rooted and helps us apply corrective measures to change the system, to continuously improve. Below is a simple Root Cause Analysis tool using these interaction of forces to help analyze the SYSTEM that caused Covid-19.
ROOT CAUSE ANALYSIS
The brainstorming of the data in this diagram is data available from organizations like the World Health Organization, WHO, and public news information outlets.
This basic Bow-tie diagram is excellent tool for analyzing the "Interaction of Forces" in a "Cause and Effect" Analysis. The Barriers in the "cause" portion, would be the action needed to prevent the event. The Barriers in the "effect" portion would serve to minimize or mitigate the results of the event.
CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
By simply modifying the "Deming Cycle" we apply the technique of continuous improvement to societal health norms around the world. First, the Plan, Do, Check, Act looks at the current norms of Human Factors, Practices, and Culture. Second, we extract DATA from the societal "SYSTEM" and then "ANALYZE" it using various techniques and tools. Finally, based on the Analysis, we promote changes to the SYSTEM, then record the data from the new modified system and analyze it again......and so on. The data we have from this pandemic clearly shows us that we have to CHANGE societal health norms in the future. We need to look at Processes, Procedures, Equipment, Training, Materials, Environment and finally Measurement of the current system.
CONCLUSION
This article is not meant to be, by any means, a cure to this global crises. My intension is merely to provoke thought by using tools that have been around for almost a hundred years. All the news today uses STATISTICS to show how BAD things will get. We use statistics to analyze Failure of disease prevention instead of using the power of analytical statistics to help prevent these events from happening or at least mitigate the effects in the future.
For more information and to attend a workshop goto: dtiquality.com. YouTube: dti training Podcast: "Safety Through Control" on Spotify and Amazon Podcasts BLOG: dtitraining.blogspot.com Twitter: dtitraining
Author: Mr. Dennis Taboada, M.eng.,CQE,CQM is president of DTI Training Canada Ltd. and CEO of DTI Training Consortium Inc. Atlanta GA. He has designed, Developed and Deployed Training Programs at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, US Veterans Administration, US Department of Defense, Transport Canada Civil Aviation and various airlines and airports throughout the world.