Right first time is wrong

by Phil Cohen

Most popular movements are built on slogans, and this is just as true of management revolutions as it is of political ones. Slogans are a little like sugary caffeine-laden soft drinks: there's an initial hit, but it wears off after a while and leaves a sour taste.

One of the most misleading catchphrases in the quality management vocabulary is "quality is doing it right first time". In fact, quality isn't.

Quality assurance, for example, is about setting up systems to make the work you do more repeatable, so that even if you're making mistakes, at least you're making the same mistake each time. The point, of course, is that you can correct the mistakes once they're repeatable; unrepeatable mistakes can never be corrected. Quality assurance will eventually lead to a system in which mistakes have been eliminated - but nowhere near first time.

In fact, the existence of imperfections is assumed as part of the ISO 9000 model for quality assurance systems. Much of the text of the standard deals with the handling of defective product, corrective action and so on. Without imperfections, how can there be improvement?

The implication of the slogan 'do it right first time' is that by putting more effort into their work (and this must, after all, be the aim of such a slogan), the people involved in the system can somehow make product which is perfect. The message is that the problem lies with the people, not the system they work in. In fact, the opposite is the case: even in sales, motivation is not a good predictor of success; what's left must be the system in which the person operates, and the tools and methods they use.

Now let's look a little closer to the concept of 'right'. How right is right, anyway? If the product you're producing meets your customer's specifications, is it perfect? Dr Genichi Taguchi would say not; he pointed out that there is always variation present in any system, and that that variation is always a bad thing. An often-quoted example is the width of car engine pistons: if they are within tolerance, are they perfect? The answer is no - slight variations in width will cause either excess friction (too wide) or poor fuel economy (too narrow). The point is that it's only by making pistons more and more accurately that the quality of the product can be improved - and they will never be perfect. There never be any such thing as 'doing it right'.

The late TQM guru D Edwards Deming set as one of his 14 points the command to "eliminate slogans". His point was that motivating people without giving them the tools to do the job properly will only dismay them. Similarly, telling them that 'quality is in your hands', or 'do it right first time' will have no effect on product or service quality, and will only provide discouragement.

So what do you use in place of slogans? Give people the tools - quality assurance to stablise systems, TQM to generate improvements - to actually improve what they do on a continual basis. Stop blaming the workforce for their mistakes, and start blaming the system they work in; its artificial barriers, limited resources, nonsensical restrictions and lack of concern for the customer.

The determinants of salesperson performance: a meta-analysis, A A Churchill Jr et al, Journal of Marketing Research, Vol XXII (May 1985), 103-118

Introduction to off-line quality control, G Taguchi and Y Wu, Japan Central Qualtiy Control Association, 1980


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This is one of a series of articles written by Phil Cohen and Onno van Ewyk, HCi . Most of the articles were also published in the Australian Financial Review. This article may be reproduced only with the permission of HCi Consulting (email HCi ). Copyright HCi, 1993-1998.