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You be the judge.

NuclearNed

NuclearNed

Raconteur
Suppose your company is in the business of making little blue toy trucks.

Specifically, you have a machine that makes the blue toy trucks. In one end goes the raw materials, and out the other end the completed blue toy trucks emerge. Every now and then, the machine malfunctions and a red toy truck is produced. If fewer than 3% of the trucks produced are red, then the machine is considered to be working properly. The machine has worked properly in this fashion for well over a year.

An employee is reassigned to work in the area with the machine. This employee has a probable cause to be very disgruntled. The very next day, the machine begins spitting out red toy trucks. 45% of all toy trucks produced are red. It should be noted that this machine is easily accessible by the majority of the workforce.

What, if any, would your assumptions be?
 
I'd assume you have a bad machine design (that either failed or allows tampering), you have insufficient oversight and bad management, and you have an employee problem (whether or not this employee caused the red trucks you still have a problem with a disgruntled employee).
 
Originally posted by: dullard
I'd assume you have a bad machine design (that either failed or allows tampering), you have insufficient oversight and bad management, and you have an employee problem (whether or not this employee caused the red trucks you still have a problem with a disgruntled employee).
Click to expand...

yeap.
 
Originally posted by: dullard
I'd assume you have a bad machine design (that either failed or allows tampering), you have insufficient oversight and bad management, and you have an employee problem (whether or not this employee caused the red trucks you still have a problem with a disgruntled employee).
Click to expand...

I agree, but just to play devil's advocate...

Most industrial machines have to have some sort of human interaction, and therefore are subject to tampering/sabotage. Employees can't be watched every single minute of their day, so there will always be time for them to perform dastardly deeds, if that is what they want to do.
 
Originally posted by: nwfsnake
Col Mustard with the Candlestick in the library.
Click to expand...

You sunk my battleship!


Seriously:

Let's see. Red trucks = 45%. X = 3%... Wait... does they employee take a train to work? If so, from which direction and how fast does it travel?
 
maybe you just monitor him 100% of a single day and see if the rate goes back down to < 3%

you don't have to monitor him for very long to statistically prove he is what is causing the change from under 3% defects to 50% defects
 
Originally posted by: FoBoT
maybe you just monitor him 100% of a single day and see if the rate goes back down to < 3%

you don't have to monitor him for very long to statistically prove he is what is causing the change from under 3% defects to 50% defects
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Yep. If you find out that he's responsible for the red trucks, you need to fire him and sue him for the lost blue truck production. Unfortunately you can't stone him to death with red trucks. Damned Bill of Rights.
 
Well if the machine is supposed to make blue trucks, then stop putting in red plastic and/or dye.

That or the raw blue plastic is in mislabled containers. I'd contact your plastic supplier.
 
Maybe the disgruntled worker fell into the machine's raw ingredients collector and got mangled into a bloody pulp... hence the sudden increase in "red" trucks?
 
Originally posted by: Ramma2
Well if the machine is supposed to make blue trucks, then stop putting in red plastic and/or dye.

That or the raw blue plastic is in mislabled containers. I'd contact your plastic supplier.
Click to expand...
Either your humor is drier than toast or the point just flew over your head and crashed into the moon...
 
I'd start selling a line of limited edition red toy trucks.

Machine + disgruntled employee + marketing team = profit?
 
Originally posted by: Chaotic42
Originally posted by: Ramma2
Well if the machine is supposed to make blue trucks, then stop putting in red plastic and/or dye.

That or the raw blue plastic is in mislabled containers. I'd contact your plastic supplier.
Click to expand...
Either your humor is drier than toast or the point just flew over your head and crashed into the moon...
Click to expand...

It's the toast one . . . I laughed.
 
Originally posted by: NuclearNed
Suppose your company is in the business of making little blue toy trucks.

Specifically, you have a machine that makes the blue toy trucks. In one end goes the raw materials, and out the other end the completed blue toy trucks emerge. Every now and then, the machine malfunctions and a red toy truck is produced. If fewer than 3% of the trucks produced are red, then the machine is considered to be working properly. The machine has worked properly in this fashion for well over a year.

An employee is reassigned to work in the area with the machine. This employee has a probable cause to be very disgruntled. The very next day, the machine begins spitting out red toy trucks. 45% of all toy trucks produced are red. It should be noted that this machine is easily accessible by the majority of the workforce.

What, if any, would your assumptions be?
Click to expand...


Quality control should have shut down the machine for inspection after a threshhold of 6% of the total output was erroniously red. Your workflow critical processes suck.
 
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