Resolving huge financial risk of Stop Shipment!

A significant order was received from a major customer. The production of the systems commenced, but during the final quality check at the production site, some systems experienced issues with smooth movement. As a result, the Quality and Reliability (Q&R) lead decided to halt the shipment of the consignment. The design team attempted to identify the cause of the problem and proposed several solutions, but the Q&R team was not satisfied with these initial attempts.

Consequently, the problem persisted for a period of 12 weeks, leading to the customer threatening to cancel the order. The severity of the situation prompted the issue to be escalated to the highest levels within the business, as the business was at risk of missing its quarterly target.

Amidst this critical situation, a newly trained design team member, well-versed in Systems Thinking, visited the factory. The factory team explained the efforts they had made to resolve the issue. Utilizing the Systems Thinking approach, the engineer sketched a system map and a few casual-loop diagrams. This revealed the root cause of the problem within hours. This insight was shared with the design team, leading them to find a suitable solution and resolved the issue in 36 hours.