Following up on an article by Robert Bottome and Richard Chua on "Genentech Error Proofs Its Batch Records" in the July 2005 Quality Progress I have spent today over 2 hours writing comments and questions. I tried to extract more details from the authors in order to make the information more useful to readers.
By using teams and Six Sigma methodology of statistical analysis they identified many sources of document and record errors and by taking simple steps significantly reduced the number of errors.
I wish that they would have estimated the financial and human side benefits of these actions, in addition to being more detailed about what they have actually done.
From "our" point of view of personal effectiveness, documents and records are important when we interact with others. Since we all do, even if we do not work in organizations, we can still generate many errors with important consequences.
What can we learn from what I have just read? Here is a short list of tips that you and I can use in our daily activities whenever appropriate.
- get feedback from others
- review before releasing
- communicate changes to those affected
- measure the amount of errors
- when the number of errors increases take time to pay special attention
- learn from mistakes and write down the rules/standards that help eliminate them
- make the text as simple as possible
Recent Comments