Welcome
Welcome to my blog, which I hope you'll find to be an interesting mixture of real-world experience, ideas, comments and observations.
Tom Gaskell
I've worked in industry as a consultant, manager and quality trouble-shooter for most of my career.
After spending 14 years in a multi-national consulting organisation and 10 years working in telecomms design and manufacturing start-ups, I set up the Cambridge (UK)-based quality, manufacturing and business consultancy Primilis (http://www.primilis.com) in 2006.
Category Archives: Business quality & processes
The winds of change…
In a recent blog I wrote about Deviations and Concessions, temporary changes that allow you – when necessary and under control – to not do things the way you normally do them. But what happens when the change is permanent; … Continue reading
Being devious about Deviations
If quality is doing “exactly what it says on the tin” (courtesy of Ronseal), what happens if you really don’t want to? What happens if you knowingly choose to do something else? Presumably that isn’t allowed? Well, yes it is. … Continue reading
Control your cosmetics – “because you’re worth it”!
No, I’m not talking about lipstick and blusher despite the tongue-in-cheek introduction. Cosmetic Inspection refers to the quality of the surfaces of products or equipment, especially those surfaces that are visible to the customer. Nothing is perfect; no material is … Continue reading
Assess yourself
No, it isn’t a Madonna song or anything written by New Order for the England football team! In order to go somewhere that you want to be you need to know where you are now, otherwise how do you know … Continue reading
How to manage risk
Another preventive technique I recently promised to blog about was risk review and analysis. This is an approach used to reduce or manage risk; we aren’t necessarily trying to achieve zero risk (if there’s no risk at all you often … Continue reading
The secrets of Poka Yoke
Poka Yoke (“poh-ka yoh-kay”), translated as mistake-proofing, was developed by Toyota manufacturing engineer Shigeo Shingo in the 1960s. (Its original name, ‘fool-proofing’ was changed because some people were offended by its implications.) It’s another preventive technique that I recently promised … Continue reading
In praise of Design Reviews
I worked in one of the large Cambridge-based technology consultancies for many years and was privileged to have clients from small, inexperienced start-ups to large, established mature enterprises. Sometimes we developed products from scratch but sometimes we were brought in … Continue reading
Quality is a strategic issue
I’d like to take an overview of what quality is… and why it’s strategically important to your business. What is Quality? Quality means meeting requirements. It isn’t about providing more features, or complexity, or performance that increases cost, takes longer … Continue reading
Prevention is better than cure
Many moons ago I was blogging about Corrective Actions and said that, whilst they were invaluable, taking Preventive Actions was even better, as it should stop the problems occurring in the first place, but is considerably more difficult! I thought … Continue reading
Is the Hawthorne Effect really just Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle for the common man?
The Hawthorne Effect was first described by psychology researcher Henry Landsberger in the fifties when he analysed work done decades earlier at Western Electric’s Hawthorn Works near Chicago. Western Electric ran a study to see if its workers would become … Continue reading
Posted in Business quality & processes, Main Page, Manufacturing, Other
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