Quality Control

By Steve Mast, ISFA President

Quality control is one of the most important things in any business, especially the countertop fabrication industry. We deal with costly materials and time-consuming field labor; thus, one minor issue can have a considerable impact. In our industry, it is estimated that any single mistake or quality control issue costs around $1000. A friend of mine, Geoffrey Gran, likes to say that issues, or remakes, are the silent killers of profit. We are always so busy solving the issue we don’t always take time to prevent it from happening in the first place.

Measuring To Improve

There are many ways to improve quality, like creating processes, training, leadership, culture and incentives. I wanted to focus on one specific area that can help, and that’s measuring and tracking. A shop doing high-end commercial business may have a different quality standard than someone doing production builder work. However, if an issue occurs, you still need to note it and measure it over time so your team can see if they are improving. I am a big fan of football, but if they didn’t keep score, would we really want to watch the game?

Tracking and Recording Issues

In our shop all issues are recorded when they occur, even prior to an attempt at resolution. We assign all issues a primary and secondary reason code, and then we measure those over time. For example, say we go to install and the job wasn’t measured correctly. We would record that issue (remake) as a template issue (primary), and the secondary would be mismeasurement of splash or deck. An install issue could be coded as material handling or onsite fabrication error. We always also note the individual or team responsible. This allows us to recognize those with little or no problems versus team members who need additional training.

You can easily create a simple spreadsheet with primary and secondary reason codes. Ours looks something like this.

Valuable Takeaways

There are a few key observations I have gathered from tracking over the years. First, even the most experienced fabricators and installers can have the same amount of issues as inexperienced ones. The reason is they take more chances; they have been doing it so long, they know how to save a little time or cut a corner in the process. This is not to say experience is bad, but it does not guarantee perfection.

Second, most fabricators have no idea how many issues they really have because they don’t track them. Fabricators will often underestimate or overestimate the number of problems they have depending upon how the business is doing that day. You may be doing much better than you think or your employees think following a tough week. You were winning the game, and you didn’t even know it because you were not keeping score.

Third, the number one thing I have found that reduces issues is having a clearly defined process and forcing everyone, regardless of skill and aptitude, to follow that process. The process must be trained and documented, similar to how we handle safety. OSHA requires that all businesses have training and documentation for forklift use, evacuation, chemical spills, etc. By taking similar approaches to prevent remakes, issues will be reduced or prevented. Remakes will always be the most frustrating and costly part of our workflow, but tracking them helps us make some headway to reducing them.