1y ago

What is a well known 'public secret' in the industry you work in that the majority of outsiders are unaware of?

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Manufacturing here. We dont have a trained QC person looking at our units before sending them to the customer. Its just some guy that checks physical dimensions. We have electronics that comes in for RMA and never gets retested on its way out. Most of our customers dont install the pieces for months so the process control gets muddied by time. Literally everyone in our company knows this. We just got our ISO 9000 cert anyway, because no one really cares about doing things right. We just put untested parts in shit and cross our fingers.
- ISO9000 is a joke. They don't care what you do, they only care that you do what you said you're doing. So if your inspection process is "we play peek-a-boo with the widget and if it's still on the table when we open our eyes, it's good to ship". ISO only cares that you have a peek-a-boo procedure and your inspectors are trained on how to play peek-a-boo.
  
  That's some poor auditing then. They have to audit the auditors, I've had ones who gave me an easy time mysteriously disappear after a couple of cycles and be replaced by people who really dug in to see if we were doing things properly.
  
  Poor auditing? Mate, they only audit for you doing what you say you're doing. And if you say you play peek-a-boo, and the auditors watch you play peek-a-boo, you're golden. ISO auditors aren't experts at whatever it is you're manufacturing and measuring, they are only experts on ISO standards. ISO trusts that you as the manufacturer are the expert in what you're making.

661 comments