Help me prove myself please!!!! Anyone work in quality control?

[Raskova]

I've been working as a quality assistant for quite a while in a small but rapidly expanding company.

Roles have changed and I now have a massive opportunity to become quality manager, if I pull my socks up! Like really far up!

A lot of the people respond terribly when there is an issue which needs fixing. This is getting better but still quite bad. Especially as there is no black and white acceptables on some products.

How can I succeed at this? Any tips please???? I'm genuinely terrified

I am very bleached blonde so I do have a fair few comments about that and I have blonde moments but generally I am very intelligent and they know it.

Ironically, the man (yes it was a he) who said that is also the one who hired me and gave me the big promotion into quality. I have no idea why he has suddenly turned. I believe it's something to do with me becoming pregnant straight after the promotion. He's not been the same since.

I just want to be successful and have things that I can enjoy that I only have because I'm good at my job. If you see what I mean.

Your appearance is irrelevant it's your efforts that should be recognised, He sounds like a sexist pig, obviously threatened by intelligent women! He is obviously taken aback on how well you are doing and he doesn't like it! Don't let him put you off! Your efforts are being recognised higher up. Unfortunately this kind of attitude is only too common in male dominated workplaces, doesn't mean you should put up with it though. If he makes any comments in front of you call him up on it x

No comments in front of me

To be honest, it bothers me less and less each day. It's simply not true and it seems everyone knows it like you say, it is only himself that it has made seem daft

Good for you, if it gets to you he's getting what he wants. I wish you all the best of luck in your new career! X

Just spot marking as I'm a Quality Manager but got to get DCs to school, back later.

OP - it's not daftness it is sexism but it's not like we've never heard it before.

I used to be in the construction game [yes with blonde and pink pigtails], in the soil testing area so they couldn't proceed without my say so.

Things I learnt.
Keep a sense of humour and get on with people as much as you can.
Keep smiling whatever the shit hitting whatever fan, but not in the middle of management meetings that will cost the company money.
Find out what the bosses actually want; they may have an unwritten rule of percentage errors versus cost of correction. If you do not know this then you cannot perform their wishes and they are the ones who call the shots. Finding out this calculation will save you years of headaches and difficult meetings.
Remember that these people know where they have cut corners, so you have to take a questioning stance to problem solving rather than a telling stance. So instead of 'you should have done x or y' it's more 'what do we have to do to resolve this and how do we sort the stock that is carrying this fault and when can we do it?'
Don't blame people - taking people down in front of others will get a target on your back. If it is one individual, then a discussion with their management on how they are going to approach it is better than calling them out on it.
Work with the teams on putting things in place to flag up issues before they become expensive to resolve.
I spent 14 years in soil testing in the civil engineering game, and had pink pigtails/bright red hair for most of it. I started when I was 19. By the time I was 21 I had a dept to manage and had 40 yr old men working for me. My neck was on the line if things were not done properly in house, and when I went to work on site, they couldn't lay the next layer of road/concrete until I said so. I often had to do tests in front of 20 construction workers at 7am when they all wanted to get on with it and go for their breakfast at 10. You learn some tricks about managing people when in that situation.

When I went away on holiday once, they laid about 1/8 of a mile of road when the ambient temp was less than 4 deg c; whereas I would have stopped work on site. You can't lay cement bound material at 4 deg c or falling, and they laid it in the snow! A few months later, they had to dig up the whole stretch and relay it - and they had laid all the layers of road over it as that section had been finished. It cost about 1/4 of a million £ to redo. I always used this as a benchmark - 'yes I know I am a PITA but honestly, it will cost you in the long run so that concrete needs to go back as it is too wet. Did I ever tell you about the time I went on holiday?...'

What industry who knows?

Good story funky.

Yesterday was an absolutely terrible day. There was an issue with one of the parts we make. It had run since 8pm Tuesday like it. I checked one shot of everything moulded on the afternoon and night shifts. All tests were passed. I start at 7. All shots passed all tests until someone else did a test at 2.30pm yesterday. The part tested was produced four hours earlier. I believe that's when they started to fail.

However, visually, they were not correct. I, as the safety net missed it, the two people who run both shifts missed it and the other guy on my shift missed it. A section should have been circular. It was oval.

I got a verbal warning. This was later retracted and removed from my file as it was felt that my response to the situation made it clear I understood the seriousness and it was effective enough that I ensure it doesn't happen again.

Like I say all tests were passed but the part was not as it should be.

Mr sexist was saying his stupid comments like 'i shouldn't be saying this but if this keeps happening, there's a door there you'll be pushed through and if you don't think you can stop it I suggest you walk through it' and shouting to my manager so I could hear 'sort your quality dept out for fuuuuuck sake'

Mortified and devastated.

Oh no, that sounds horrendous. We all make mistakes but should be working together to correct it and prevent it happening again, not trying to blame one another. Were you at work again today? Has a non-conformance investigation been raised? Mr Sexist sounds like a complete shit.

It sounds as though the specifications for the product are totally inadequate, how are these tests documented?

I work in biotechnology. We are not accredited to ISO9001 but we follow the principles and are audited regularly by customers against the standard. When I started there they had a substantial set of procedures but were only paying lip service to them, I overhauled the whole lot and started ensuring that they were actually followed. It is my experience (25 years in various Quality environments, mostly regulated - medical devices/pharma) that people either have a natural feel for QA or they don't. Those that don't can be educated in it if they are willing, but there are always a few that dig in and resist firmly. You have to sell it to them, how can it make their life easier.

I've always said that quality is about managing grey areas. You can have as many procedures and specifications as you like and most people can follow those but there are always grey areas and it's how you deal with those that both makes the job interesting and enables improvements to take place. I think the single most important element of a QMS is the investigation and CAPA systems, incorporating customer complaints and audit non-conformances, get those right and it can make a huge difference. And yes to the "why, why, why" method, I use that analogy too. Also ongoing monitoring and assessment of metrics, you need to strive to always improve the system.

My current company is tiny (

There is some very good advice on this thread! And the CQI is definitely worth subscribing to, it helped me through many a dark hour
Although I am no longer a quality manager I am still heavily involved in the field (I am now an auditor) and get to see how it works in all kinds of industries. There is also a massive difference between the companies who have bought in to 9001, and the ones who are forced in to it by their customers. It is such a good system and yes it does work!

Yes I work full time so always there. No nothing more was said about it yesterday. The machine was playing up all day but I caught it this time it was unmissable tho.

The consultant guy is in again today. I think mr sexist is counting down the seconds until he can tell him about my fuckup. My boss reckons it won't be mentioned.

That's the main problem with my workplace, not many people care about quality. I want the product to be it's best. They see a problem and say 'that'll do'. My boss has changed things immensely since he came in but there's still a lot of work to do.

We now have all these cheesy signs around the place. Think quality and then an 'inspiring' slogan underneath. It's a good idea tho. It puts quality in your mind. We need that. I don't know enough about injection moulding and sometimes they lie to me. Perhaps I need to invest in 'injection moulding for dummies'

DDs DF says I should do a lean six sigma course as it's the perfect industry. He also says to me 'if you want to find a problem with x, be x' and every so often he sends me a text saying 'be the x'

Everyone at work knows of my love for mumsnet so if I put x, I out myself less

They lie to me about injection moulding by saying 'oh that's a big job, it'll take hours. Are you sure it's worth it?' When last time it took them ten mins or they'll say they wouldn't know how to fix it so it should run etc etc

It all needs to be documented, in a non-accusatory style, in the non-conformance system, including any failure to deal with a problem in the first instance. Write up the investigation factually, avoid operator error as a root cause (look for the reason why the operator made an error), assign corrective actions (this is the part where you need buy-in from the relevant parties). Make the actions SMART, and stick to them, if they need to change prior to completion then document that too. Hopefully the operators see that they can minimise the need for all this by early intervention. If it is all written up without blame they know they are accountable but without feeling got at. Also use trend analysis, has this happened before, how often, why have previous actions not prevented recurrence. It's a very powerful system if used well and can really promote ownership of problems.

Most of my previous jobs have been for American companies who were prone to outbreaks of cheesy signs etc. I think you're right in that it is a but cringeworthy but does plant an awareness in people's minds. I find some aspects of my job very tedious but overall I love working in QA, it is like an everlasting problem solving opportunity.