Why Are So Many Businesses Abandoning Formal Problem-Solving Projects for Complex Issues?

Monte Heisler, Director, Manufacturing Quality, North American Stamping Group

Being somewhat older, I can remember in the late 1990's when General Motors insisted that each supplier attend Shainin - Red "X" training along with having open projects to solve major scrap and customer rejection issues. Later, Six Sigma problem solving became an improved process to solve these same issues using a somewhat different strategy. Individuals like me decided we could intertwine the different concepts based on the problem application. Some leaders now are not familiar with Shainin processes and will look at you oddly when you recommend these processes to them. Regardless of the problem-solving processes that are used, from the 1980's to the early 2000's the thought process was that if the engineers could have solved the problem they would have by now and complex problems require complex problem-solving tools. Hesitation to solve major cost issues was not acceptable in most companies.

Fast forward to the 2020s. Companies are very interested in whether you possess these tools during the hiring process but don’t seem to have the desire to use them once hired. When you ask most six-sigma green or black belts how many projects they have led now invariably the answer is “the one project that they used to become certified”. Of course, this significantly diminishes the return on investment for receiving the training, which is very expensive. If the companies paying for the training are not utilizing the Shainin or Six Sigma knowledge throughout the year to solve the problems, it is difficult to justify the training in the first place. My experience is that in some cases upper management is not aware that each certified problem solver should have projects throughout the year. This not only adds to the bottom line but expands problemsolving training to those who participate on teams including supervisors, technicians and operators.

Companies value problem-solving credentials during hiring, yet many fail to utilize these skills once employees are on board—diminishing both impact and investment

Another contributor to formal problem-solving diminishing is the focus on Continuous Improvement or CI teams. Many times, leaders will conflate these concepts to the same process. Many times, CI leaders know very little about formal problem solving so the focus tends to be on cycle times and layouts rather than defect reduction. In addition, company leaders want to easily see a spreadsheet on CI projects but have difficulty visualizing problem solving project savings which can miss the hidden cost related to customer charges, expedited shipping, sorting etc.

In summary, company leaders believe that the process, product and tooling, engineers are all- knowing and can solve any issue without thinking twice when the problems expensively last months and years. The engineers tend to try to analyze each variable and not focus on those that give the best data to purposely step toward the root cause/ Red “X”. It was Dorian Shanin that stated, “Talk to the parts”. He believed they were smarter than the engineers.