Improvement Insights Blog
It’s the System!
One guy told me that defects, mistakes and errors are like the wind and the waves. There’s nothing we can do about it. He’s so wrong. Here’s why:
“I was talking to somebody the other day, and we were talking about defects and mistakes and errors and things going on. They said, “Oh, that’s like the wind and the waves.” I said, “No it’s not. It’s not cosmic forces and atmospheric conditions. It’s a system, and the system is forcing people to make those mistakes or letting them make those mistakes and errors. All we have to do is fix the system.”
“He looked at me like I was out of my mind. Not true. Everything that we do as humans involves a system. Some systems are pretty good, some systems… not so good. We’ve just got to go out and start mistake-proofing things until there just aren’t any mistakes left to be made, or that can be made.
“That’s my Improvement Insight. Let’s go out and improve something this week.”
