Here is a common scenario that has come across my path again just this week. It happens to all of us at some point. We conduct our routine incoming inspection or quality test of materials or components, and something fails the screen. Now what?

Obviously, the first thing to do is to contain the problem. We must now quarantine the incoming material and prevent any defective elements from entering our production system. But that still leaves us with a very big and obvious problem: We need to be producing, and the material we just received can’t be used. If we are running real-time production processes or close to it, we just shut down. Ouch.

This is where our business leaders start to stress and, of course, share that stress with the rest of us. A common, but inappropriate, reaction is often, “Test some more; if they pass, then we can accept the material and go back into production, right?” Wrong! No!

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