E219 - Common Cause and Special Cause [E219]

Thanks to our Partner, Pico Technology

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Comebacks. Rechecks. Catastrophic parts failures. The stuff that makes everyone’s stomach drop. Matt makes the case that a big part of management’s day-to-day job is not “policing people,” but acting like an investigator—leading with genuine curiosity to figure out what actually happened and what should change.

Using Dr. W. Edwards Deming’s framework, Matt breaks problems into two buckets:

Common cause: Variation that’s built into the system (processes, tools, training, information flow, software, vendors, documentation, workflow chaos, etc.). These problems...