Ok so I need to vent about my current situation.
Overview:
-I’m a machinist who works in a very “successful” company with high standards of quality. I have an education in this field and have worked in the field for 4 years at +/- 5 companies
The good stuff:
So the company I work for currently has a system for quality. I won’t mention the name of this system because I’m sure a few people would know exactly what company I’m talking about.
Now in this system they have QNs (Quality Notifications) essentially what these do is punish you for every single mistake you could possibly make (or others, we’ll get into that later). Now so far this system makes sense right? I agree. Now the issue is after 7 QNs within a year you will be fired.
That being said think about new employees, people who have never seen these blueprints or parts before. Granted we have a standard of quality sheet for every job it doesn’t go in depth about visual issues such as marks on your forging, scratches on the part, or finish (the smoothness of the metal after being cut)
So for these new employees they often catch a QN before their first month. Now even if you don’t get 7 these are held against you severely. Even if it’s not dimensional. For instance you have a chip on the part you didn’t notice and it could easily be debured or you had to stamp the part but didn’t notice because it’s not on the paperwork. (Someone else’s mistake) now these employees have a QN for something they didn’t even know about.
Other peoples mistakes:
Now to get into the juicy good stuff. If someone sends me a forging that’s bad and I tell my support staff and they tell me to run it and inspection doesn’t like it, QN on the machinist. If someone forgets to put something in the paperwork so you don’t do it (for instance the stamps) it’s still your QN. If the person before you ran bad parts. CONGRATS YOU GOT A QN!!
Needless to say this is terrible. In my honest opinion if you make a mistake and learn from it you shouldn’t be punished. Should it be documented? Of course. But In the least they should let newer employees off the hook. Maybe first years? Or maybe if people repeat the same mistake everyday then punish them? Like I said I’ve been in the field for 4 years and worked at maybe 5 companies and every where else would be like “hey this is a bad part fix it” and move on. Why punish people for learning?