Closing the Gap Between Quality Plans and Plant Reality

Transcript

[00:01:04] Josh Santo: Today’s guest brings a global perspective on quality with experience spanning the US, India, and Europe, and a passion for turning quality from a cost center into a competitive advantage. He’s currently a quality manager for a manufacturer of automotive products where he leads initiatives and quality management systems and process optimization.

[00:01:24] Josh Santo: Over the past seven years, he’s held roles across manufacturing, continuous improvement and engineering at organizations like Ramp Group CIE, Gold Roof Systems, Stellantis and Marelli. He’s an IATF 16 9 49 lead auditor and six Sigma Green Belt with a black belt in progress and has successfully launched APQP programs across multiple continents.

[00:01:48] Josh Santo: He believes quality isn’t about perfection on day one. It’s about progress every day, and he is here to share how manufacturers can shift mindsets, secure leadership, buy-in, and use technology to elevate quality across the organization.

[00:02:04] Josh Santo: Please welcome to the show Ishant Gajbhiye.

[00:02:06]  Josh Santo: Ishan, thanks for joining me today.

[00:02:08] Ishant Gajbhiye: Hey, thank you for having me here, Josh.

[00:02:11]  Josh Santo: It’s certainly a pleasure. I am really excited about this conversation, especially because we’re recording right before the holidays. I know you’ve got some travel coming up. You’re going to India. I’m gonna go out to California. So this was really the perfect time before the hectic holiday season coming up.

[00:02:29] Ishant Gajbhiye: Absolutely, Josh. I think we both are traveling to tropical region.

[00:02:34]  Josh Santo: Yeah. well, and, it’s about to storm here, so, this episode’s probably airing in December. Hopefully it’s a little cold in Texas by that point, at least where I am. ’cause I wouldn’t mind feeling like it’s a cold holiday season. but. I digress. Well anyway, we’re not here to talk about the weather or our wonderful tales of travel.

[00:02:58]  Josh Santo: We’re here today to talk about quality in manufacturing. So I’m gonna kick us off like we always do, Han. I want to know what it looks like, what a typical day looks like for you as a quality manager.

[00:03:11] Ishant Gajbhiye: Josh, I think it’s a great question. I always wonder what a typical day would look like for me, being as, working in quality management. so let’s say here, um. A quick start. When I reach the office, what I do is like I have a quick scan of what the overnight customer feedback had, might been from the previous day or previous week.

[00:03:31] Ishant Gajbhiye: look for any warranty data. go over through production KPIs to see if there are any issues that require any immediate response. and once that is done, then our team. As a part of Gemba walk, we go out on the floor, because I believe that the best insight comes from seeing the process in the real time, rather than just sitting in the office.

[00:03:57] Ishant Gajbhiye: And, while we do that walk, we try to go on through some ongoing issues. and, try to see if the containment action that were placed, earlier, day or in that week for certain issues are still effective. And we also make sure that the operators who are working on the line or in any of the other areas do have the right resources to perform their duty effectively.

[00:04:20] Ishant Gajbhiye: so that’s pretty much like the first half of the day that goes by in that, Maybe, let’s say the first two to three hours is engage in this activity. Once that is done, then my, day actually shifts towards a strategy end, like reviewing some APQP activities, validating any process updates that are in line or analyzing some data trends or even sometimes, preparing for internal or external audits based on if it is like a third party or a customer centric audits.

[00:04:52] Ishant Gajbhiye: And, having a background in quality as well as in continuous improvement function. these walks and this cadence that have been set up as a team, helps us to fight a short term, firefight, with a long term system building vision. and at least every part of that day is spent in cross-functional collaboration. Sometimes with production, with engineering, either in operations, and we also emphasize into supplier engagement to make sure that we are aligning with the KPIs, our supplier engagement process capability, and any new customer requirement of with respect to the incoming material. so that is pretty much how my day-to-day activities look like.

[00:05:38]  Josh Santo: and you’re fitting all of that within eight hours. That seems like quite a lot to try and get through.

[00:05:45] Ishant Gajbhiye: yeah. because this is not just me alone doing, when I have a good team, I can actually have like a pockets of time to ensure that, for example, let’s say if I have to go over through KPI, somebody in the team might have already created, The graph, and all I have to do is to see which are the top three, issues that we have to address.

[00:06:08] Ishant Gajbhiye: And that takes me a quarter of the time. So not dwelling into the details at that time, but this is something, as a framework I keep. And if something requires an immediate tension to address, then sometimes this framework doesn’t complete. and then we stop there and then we deep dive into those issues.

[00:06:29]  Josh Santo: Got it. So that’s a fair point. Now, one of the questions I usually ask is, how big of an organization or a team that you have, so set. Give us some context. How many people are reporting up to you or on your team as a quality manager?

[00:06:44] Ishant Gajbhiye: sure. I think, uh. Or the years have been engaged into leading teams. maybe we can call as like a small cross-functional group, with full quality department, which includes quality technician, continuous improvement engineers. Cross-functional launch team, which might have one or two engineers, either from engineering department, we have internal auditors and we also have a supplier quality interface team.

[00:07:12] Ishant Gajbhiye: so if I have to put a, like a quantify, that should come around 10 to 12 people.

[00:07:19]  Josh Santo: Okay, great. And when you’re leading that team, what are the metrics, the KPIs, the North Star that you’re driving that team towards?

[00:07:29] Ishant Gajbhiye: wow, that’s a great question. There are a bunch of, KPIs that as a department we have to be aligned with. However, there Six to seven KPIs, which I prefer to look into. That helps me to navigate what my next steps will be. for example, some of them are, like the first time quality, that’s one of the KPI, scrap and cost of poor quality.

[00:07:57] Ishant Gajbhiye: That’s another, customer, PPM or let’s say warranty trends. This is another, process oriented KPIs, especially OEE. this helps me to understand how the launch programs are going on, audit performance and non-conformance closure rates. that helps me to align with my third party, audits or customer oriented audits.

[00:08:20] Ishant Gajbhiye: and then there are some basic fundamental KPIs, which are related to tools like FEMA and control plan alignment. And, the most important for me is supplier performance and incoming quality.

[00:08:33]  Josh Santo: Oh, okay. A number of different ones there. There’s a couple that I mean, all of them stand out, but there’s some that I want to dig a little bit deeper into real quick. You mentioned scrap and cost of poor quality. Now, oftentimes when I work with manufacturers, they find it pretty straightforward to calculate the scrap cost.

[00:08:55]  Josh Santo: However, I hear different perspectives on how accurate. Of a cost of poor quality metric you can actually come up with. I’m curious, from your experience, is it possible to have a truly accurate cost of poor quality or is it more of a situation where you can reasonably make arguments that certain metrics factor into your cost of poor quality, but you’ll never truly know the entire impact of the cost of poor quality?

[00:09:29]  Josh Santo: What are your thoughts?

[00:09:30] Ishant Gajbhiye: so Josh, I will go with the latter one. when it comes to cost of work quality, I do agree different organization have different framework. Uh. To acknowledge that, even measure that, what I believe is cost of poor quality, usually are approximate because there are some of the costs, which no matter how hard you try, to get it to the dollar, now the cents has gone.

[00:09:56] Ishant Gajbhiye: So I can’t say that, but, to the, $1 or to the, lease dollar, it gets very challenging, because there are some costs, which We are not even able to identify. However, what I like about cost of poor quality, it gives us an understanding okay, where we have to emphasize more. that also aligns my function as a continuous improvement, to see which projects I can open up based on the metrics.

[00:10:24] Ishant Gajbhiye: and, uh. If you look online, there are multiple ways how cost of work qualities are measured, and it depends on industry to industry. If you are working into, an industry which develops more of like a complex product, or when I say complex is like there are multiple, service assemblies, versus if you are working into a steel industry where there is only one single material with a very simple process, the cost of poor quality and measurement differs.

[00:10:50] Ishant Gajbhiye: On the case to case basis. but the zest is same. it allows an organization to understand where the leak is, and they can actually pull the team together to stop the leak and actually propel the organization toward profitability.

[00:11:06]  Josh Santo: I read somewhere and I don’t have the stat available, I’m sure anyone listening can Google this, but I read somewhere that the estimate is, on average cost of poor quality is around 20% of revenue. from an average perspective, and that to your point, it’s still approximate. It’s difficult to really know what are the downstream impacts financially from cost of poor quality.

[00:11:31]  Josh Santo: However, there are some things that you can and are already measuring, scrap and rework like we talked about, so you can at least say, we know that it’s at least this bad. Or if you’re doing great, it’s, it’s at least, you know, we’re doing very well on that, but oftentimes you could say, this is the baseline and it’s probably higher, so we should prioritize whatever initiative in order to drive it.

[00:11:54]  Josh Santo: Now one of the next metrics that you called out was OEE, and one of the, one of the components of OEE is quality. So when you’re looking at OEE, are you focused just on quality or are you looking at OEE as a whole?

[00:12:09] Ishant Gajbhiye: I love to see OEE as whole. If I, because quality as a metric, can be helpful because if I boil down, or let’s say I demystify quality, there are the other KPIs, which I talked about, actually ties up, to give me that. so I know that I am focusing on OE, but. Quality is more of an integrator and as a team member.

[00:12:33] Ishant Gajbhiye: So I try to see how quality can also support other functions that can help, provide support to increase the OEE. So that’s my main reason to look into the OEE aspect as well.

[00:12:45]  Josh Santo: Okay. Got it. And so in that case, it’s really how can quality better serve the other functions of the facility, of the operation, because. really quality is there to be a partner to everyone. Great. Well, I love that. I love that you’re taking a more holistic approach. You’re not just saying, well, I’m responsible for quality, so we’re just gonna focus on quality, because to your point, really, if we wanna get quality at the source, we always have to go.

[00:13:13]  Josh Santo: More and more upstream at that case than some of those other metrics within OEE tied to, to some of those things. Now you also mentioned audit performance and non-conformance closure rate. This is something near and dear to my heart being at ease. I’m curious, have you, in your experience noticed around, non-conformance closure rates and the impact it’s had on some of those other metrics that you’ve shared?

[00:13:42] Ishant Gajbhiye: Yeah. I think there are two parts to how you see it. I’ll share an example. when we talk about audit performance, right? There are internal audits that we do. There are layered process audits, we perform, and then there are some audits, which are assigned to us, like a self-assessment by customer.

[00:14:00] Ishant Gajbhiye: if we keep on performing the audits, and we just keep on stating that these are the OFIs, these are the non-conformance. But we don’t stop and then see how we can close it. It’ll just pile up things. And, we may be in a delusion that, yes, I’m performing great. Yes, I’m going to the right path. but in reality, we are actually not addressing that issue.

[00:14:22] Ishant Gajbhiye: So that non-conformance closure rate becomes, very important for me. one thing that allows me to do is like. Gives me a sense of accountability. and, when you have timelines to any kind of project, chances are your performance are higher and you are more efficient as compared to, with no accountability.

[00:14:43] Ishant Gajbhiye: so these two KPIs play a very vital role when you are trying to build a culture, where you’re trying to, Let people know that it’s not a one man show, but it’s more of like a system that you’re trying to create.

[00:14:58]  Josh Santo: Got it. So really you’re, you’re seeing it as a indicator of discipline. You, you mentioned accountability. Are we doing the things that we’re supposed to be doing? If we’re doing that with this regard, with following up on non-conformances, we can be more assured that we’re. Doing the right thing when we’re supposed to in other aspects of our operation.

[00:15:22]  Josh Santo: However, if we’re not following up on these non-conformances, there’s probably a higher likelihood that there’s other things that we’re not following up on. So it’s a bit of a leading indicator from your perspective.

[00:15:36] Ishant Gajbhiye: Yes, and I would like to add one more thing, Josh, like if you see, if you’re not diligent enough. To have a timeliness or a framework to close internal non-conformances, then it becomes challenging when you have actual customer oriented non-conformances. so for me, an internal non-conformance closure rate becomes very vital.

[00:15:58] Ishant Gajbhiye: To make sure that my actual customer scorecards for quality are green rather than yellow and red. And I have built a good relationship with my customers. All the customers are looking for if there is an issue, how fast, we can provide them a containment plan, a response, or close that issue. So, those are the main intention.

[00:16:19] Ishant Gajbhiye: That’s like a long-term outcome of these non-con KPIs.

[00:16:24]  Josh Santo: Mm-hmm. They want to know that if an issue happens, you one know how to deal with it, are dealing with it and taking the efforts to make sure that it doesn’t happen again. thus inconveniencing them, slowing down their operations or, you know, depending on what type of products you’re selling potentially.

[00:16:42]  Josh Santo: it difficult for them to sell their own products, in which case you’re affecting their own revenue.

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[00:18:08]  Josh Santo: Well, let’s, let’s talk a little bit more, we’ve been talking about quality manufacturing, but I want to understand a little bit more about your perspective and your experience. So, I’m curious, Sean, what have you seen others in manufacturing, like people in production or continuous improvement or leadership or, you know.

[00:18:27]  Josh Santo: Everyone that you can think of in manufacturing, what have you seen others get wrong about quality in manufacturing?

[00:18:36] Ishant Gajbhiye: Wow. That’s a very good question. And I think, I’ll, I was thinking over, this, even the past couple of months I’ve been thinking, like when I transitioned myself from as a manufacturing engineer to quality, my perspective towards quality was quality is responsible for fixing

[00:18:55] Ishant Gajbhiye: everything.

[00:18:56] Ishant Gajbhiye: When something goes wrong.

[00:18:58] Ishant Gajbhiye: I used to think that they are the one department which has a standalone firefighting unit. that’s my perspective. so, but when I transition into quality, what I realize more than a standalone unit, quality is actually a supporting function. And, for example, quality becomes very, very helpful when you have a framework and you work with the department of quality to have a tool set that can help to build some kind of a discipline for operations or other departments as well.

[00:19:32] Ishant Gajbhiye: So that’s how my perspective changed. for example, production owns process execution. engineering owns process capability. Logistic homes, material flow. But when you look at the quality, they are in the center of this. They are actually the integrator of all these three department. So rather than thinking quality to fix the entire system, we, unintentionally.

[00:19:58] Ishant Gajbhiye: Try to distance ourself from owning our own processes. So those are some of the misconception which I had. And I believe, if somebody is listening, to us,

[00:20:08]  Josh Santo: they

[00:20:08]  Josh Santo: may

[00:20:09]  Josh Santo: also,

[00:20:09] Ishant Gajbhiye: feel the same.

[00:20:11]  Josh Santo: So before you got into quality, your perspective was those guys are responsible for fixing problems. They’re the firefighters, to your point, they’re the team of firefighters. And over time, after you. Really got into it, you learned that it’s not about being the ones to fix the issue, it’s the ones facilitating the right people working together to not only fix the issue, but prevent the issue from ever happening.

[00:20:36]  Josh Santo: So seeing quality more as an enabler as opposed to kind of that hero syndrome, hero intervention style things. Um, although I’m sure. That is still needed from time to time. I had a guest on recently, and he talked about some of the guys on his team had to be those, like Navy SEAL styles, elite specialists.

[00:21:01]  Josh Santo: Like go in, figure out the problem, fix it kind of thing. Because sometimes you do just have to react, in order to contain and then. Buy yourself some time to really work on the fixes. Now, Ashan, that’s quite the, the journey to go on from seeing it as firefighting, to seeing it as an enabler. Talk to me about that initial state of mind.

[00:21:25]  Josh Santo: Why do you think that that was your initial perception about quality?

[00:21:31] Ishant Gajbhiye: one of the big reason is because quality are the messenger of bad news usually, like the scrap. You talk about defects, they talk about non-conformists customer complaint. so when you start, hearing all these things that things are going sideways, not to where we want to be. psychologically a human brain won, would like to avoid such kind of a discomfort.

[00:21:59] Ishant Gajbhiye: So that’s why you will see in most of the organization, um, when quality are asked to share anything. In any kind of a meeting, they usually start with like bad news. But unfortunately that’s true and that’s why I, we are there. And I remember when I first transitioned into quality and I was promoted as a quality manager, my director told me like, if everything goes well, you and me will not be required in any company.

[00:22:32] Ishant Gajbhiye: So that’s more of like a nature of the quality department, and I think that’s the reason, I had that perspective as well.

[00:22:39]  Josh Santo: You know, that’s funny that you equate it to quality kind of in the messenger of bad news. I had a another. Guest. previously on the show he was a director of quality and one of the things he talked about is quality walks into the room and someone goes, uhoh, someone’s in trouble. and they start to see quality more as a police force, as a bearer of bad news.

[00:23:03]  Josh Santo: To your point, now I’m reminded of one of my first jobs out of college. I worked in a call center and I worked for Apple, and I had a manager. well, a little bit more context. Working at a call center for support and supporting technical products. Whenever you get a call, it’s not usually because someone’s having a great day.

[00:23:26]  Josh Santo: They’re usually calling because they’ve got an issue. They need your help. Well, unfortunately, there were some times in which there was no help I could provide, other than being an ear and. In those moments, I had a manager that would coach us, and what he would coach is that we never have bad news. We never have bad news.

[00:23:49]  Josh Santo: Even if the answer is no, I can’t help you. It wasn’t bad news. It was, well, look, I got some good news for you. You called the right person. Now I’m gonna tell you what we can do. And then you know, you position what you can’t do. But I bring that up because Han, I’m wondering if instead of approaching it, of we have scrap or we have a non-conformances, or we have customer complaints, do you think psychologically there would be a change?

[00:24:14]  Josh Santo: That perception if someone walked in and said, good news everyone, we’ve got an opportunity to show the customer that we can do better as opposed to bad news, everyone, we got a customer complaint. Do you think that would. Help in any way, shape, or form.

[00:24:32] Ishant Gajbhiye: Absolutely. I think. to change that perspective. if I want to summarize that how, because there are many things, as an individual, as in a department, or as an organization, things can be done. but if I were given an opportunity to change that perspective, the top four things that I will definitely do is, number one, I will educate. Educate, to people, especially people who are on, on the floor or related to the critical process about how quality tools can reduce workload, not increase it. The second thing that I would love to do is being a part of quality team, I will demonstrate wins. When I say demonstrate wins, I’ll show them hard savings, not on the paper, but actual that, yes. When we follow a certain process, when we implement certain error proofing aspect, use right tools. There are money, there is a money that can be saved in dollars. emphasize the habit or discipline of being proactive rather than reactive.

[00:25:41] Ishant Gajbhiye: For example, leading. PFMEA audits, training to prevent issues rather than training to them, Hey, you did this incorrect. and the last thing will be, and very important is communication. now communication in quality can be of two way. If you are a highly technical person. and you are not able to demonstrate what you’re trying to communicate to upper management in terms of business terms, I think it’ll fall on deaf ears.

[00:26:15] Ishant Gajbhiye: for the lack of better word. so what I believe is like, we as a quality person, we are, we understand a lot of aspect, from a technical side. So not using technical jargons, but translating their defects in terms of dollars will help you to gain that trust and have their buy-ins when you’re trying to implement any kind of a solution.

[00:26:37] Ishant Gajbhiye: So I believe these are the four top things that I would use. To change

[00:26:43]  Josh Santo: that perspective,

[00:26:44] Ishant Gajbhiye: that people have.

[00:26:46]  Josh Santo: So the top four things educate, you know, making sure people understand how quality can reduce their workload. Demonstrating wins, showing that, look what we’re talking about. It’s working. There’s proof. Here’s proof right here. Emphasize that idea of being proactive and not reactive.

[00:27:03]  Josh Santo: Let’s not wait for an issue to happen. Let’s get ahead of it. Let’s make it to where that issue can’t happen. What are your ideas? Tell me your ideas and communication, but more specifically, I wrote down from what you were saying. Adapt. Adapt your message. Understand who your audience is so that when you’re communicating them, you can make sure to speak to the things that are gonna help them not only understand, but also buy in to the concepts of what you’re sharing.

[00:27:35]  Josh Santo: These are all, I think, really great examples that are applicable beyond just quality. This is really any sort of. Change management requires these four perspectives to be introduced. I’m curious, Ashan, we talked about a story in which you saw quality as the group that solves problems. You kinda put ’em in a box, so to speak, and now that you’ve been in quality for a time, and now that you’re a quality manager and you’re responsible for quality, your perspective has completely changed.

[00:28:07]  Josh Santo: Do you feel like. You went through those four points, your seller, somebody, somebody took you through that idea, meaning that they, somebody educated you, somebody showed you those wins, somebody taught you to be proactive, somebody helped you understand how to adapt your message. Was that an experience that you went through?

[00:28:28] Ishant Gajbhiye: Yes. Josh, I have not been this smart from day one. As a matter of fact, when I graduated, in 2017 with a master’s, I had, let’s see, 0.5% understanding of quality. The only thing that we learned about quality were what are the seven tools? what are the ways, what are seven ways that you look for?

[00:28:53] Ishant Gajbhiye: so it was only theoretical, now, knowledge. So I am very grateful that, along the course of my career, I have came across some really great people. Who had a different perspective, towards quality and they had different methods, how they were achieving their wins. and. I’m very, very thankful to them because what they did helped me understand that these are the, some of the points, if we align and adapt, I have an opportunity to propel my career and be successful and add value to wherever I am planted.

[00:29:29] Ishant Gajbhiye: so I’m very thankful to.

[00:29:31]  Josh Santo: So often in the conversations that I have, especially folks who are in leadership positions, they can speak to those experiences where someone challenged their perspective or someone help them see a different way in, in such a way that they didn’t even realize that they were changing their minds in the moment.

[00:29:48]  Josh Santo: And. I’ve talked to so many folks, particularly, particularly in quality, who have mentioned that that leadership is a struggle for them. not the act of leading, but the act of getting the support they need from leadership, the mentoring, et cetera. I talked with the chief manufacturing officer who specifically said.

[00:30:09]  Josh Santo: On the podcast that leadership in America is what’s killing manufacturing in America. So this is a very important topic. That idea of taking the time to mentor individuals, to challenge their perspective, to, to teach them, enable them, et cetera. It’s a hugely important one.

[00:30:26] Ishant Gajbhiye: I will just emphasize a little bit on this mentoring thing. A lot of time. People get delusional, especially students, that when you talk about mentoring or coaching, it’ll be more of like a in class thing where you sit in the class, people will say, A, B, C are the issues, and you have to do A, B, C.

[00:30:43] Ishant Gajbhiye: That’s not how the real world works. Most of this education, when you are in a professional environment, 80% of it goes through observation. 10% goes on reflection and the 10% goes on asking the right question. So your manager or your director with whom you’re working will not have enough time to help you sit down and understand.

[00:31:05] Ishant Gajbhiye: He might give you an opportunity where, hey, there is an issue. Please have me, give me these answers. And now, in the industries, these are the norms where people might say, Hey, my, my boss or my manager is too tough. But you have to read between the lines to understand why, because he might be a more detail oriented person.

[00:31:26] Ishant Gajbhiye: So when you are working, doing the same work multiple times, you’re actually learning the detail oriented. When we write in the resume, I’m a detail oriented guy. What, that’s what exactly you mean. Or if somebody is saying that, Hey, can you summarize this issue in less than three or four lines, that is actually emphasizing you to open up your critical thinking.

[00:31:47] Ishant Gajbhiye: I have this technical jargon in my mind how I can simplify and write it down. So I feel like there are multiple ways how people can get educated. It’s just they need to clear their mind to understand how are they approaching towards this education.

[00:32:05]  Josh Santo: You have to be open to seeing it as an opportunity to improve is, is really what I’m hearing

[00:32:12] Ishant Gajbhiye: Right. Like my director, I remember, with whom I work, he was from France and he has his own way of working. ’cause in Europe, the work culture is very different. versus I had a manager in my early days who was from Mexico and they are the most hardworking and hustling people. So two different cultures, two different way of navigating things, but the same thing, how you can be successful.

[00:32:36] Ishant Gajbhiye: So. That’s how people should take leverage and see how they can propel themselves.

[00:32:42]  Josh Santo: Absolutely. Well, I love that you called it out that, you know, mentorship is not something that you should look at it as. It’s an official, like, let’s sit down, we’re going to mentor you. it can be that. But it’s also really on the individual. Themselves who needs to seek knowledge and seek challenge, and seek to try different things when faced with those challenges.

[00:33:05]  Josh Santo: And it’s okay to ask for help or let someone know you don’t understand or you need some additional explanation. But to your point, it’s really about taking control and, and challenging yourself and, and being open to that and approaching people. So I love that you’re putting the ownership on the individual there, and that’s something that I completely agree with and relate to.

[00:33:25]  Josh Santo: Now I want to go back to that experience where you thought of quality as the firefighting team, and we talked about how oftentimes quality is seen as the bearer of bad news, kind of puts quality in a, in a bucket, so to speak, a silo, if you will. Talk to me a shot about. How you can tell whether quality is seen as a supporting function and partner as opposed to a siloed firefighting policing team.

[00:33:57] Ishant Gajbhiye: wow. So, wow. Difficult question. let me see how I can, I can frame this, this particular answer. So like, say if I want to, or, your questions is like, how quality can be looked as to a true partner, a supporting partner, rather than being

[00:34:14]  Josh Santo: If, if somebody is listening to this episode, what would be the signs that they could observe that would let them know that quality in my organization is not seen as a partner? It’s seen as a firefighter.

[00:34:31] Ishant Gajbhiye: Makes sense. So what we need to do in this aspect to change this scenario here is, we, we get, we as a quality get a lot of information, sometimes up ahead, especially from customers. so what we can do, rather than having those conversation, ladder at

[00:34:52]  Josh Santo: reactive

[00:34:53] Ishant Gajbhiye: stage, how

[00:34:54] Ishant Gajbhiye: about inviting operators? To a kind of a short, meeting every production start and say like, Hey, when we run so and so kind of a product, there is usually a, b, c, kind of a defects that occur. Keep an eye on it. If you see there are symptoms of so and so, kind raise your hand maybe when you are doing kind of like an engineering documentation.

[00:35:19] Ishant Gajbhiye: Updates like FEMA control plan. don’t, Be it in isolation or say like, okay, it’s a process engineer’s job. They will do it and they will say, give it to us. See how you can be, coordinating a team meeting to say, how is the quality we can help you and not just handing it off, um, production. The, the best part of being into the production department is like you have ample of data.

[00:35:45] Ishant Gajbhiye: You, you have day and night every shift data, what goes in, what went wrong, what went down. so seeing those quality, not seeing those quality checks as a burden, but using them as like a data to see what forecasting we can do and what kind of new frameworks we can develop. And lastly, but very, very important is, the involvement of management.

[00:36:09] Ishant Gajbhiye: The management needs to see the KPIs of especially coming from the quality metrics, not just output or the cost, but a way of how they can improve themselves, like culture wise. So I feel if we follow these one, these couple of steps, there can be a drastic change and you will see in coming years. If most of the organizations adapt this, you will see quality more of like a true partner as compared to a standalone entity.

[00:36:37] Ishant Gajbhiye: Entity.

[00:36:38]  Josh Santo: And now, is that an exercise that you had to work through yourself? I would love to hear a little bit about. Maybe some of a challenge that you may have experienced with an aspect of that.

[00:36:50] Ishant Gajbhiye: Yeah, I will actually remember I told you there were some great people in my life who helped me understand the perspective of quality. I will share some of the things which I learned observing them. My manager used to have an 6:00 AM meeting from 6:00 AM to 6:10. The meeting was in two parts, the first five minutes.

[00:37:10] Ishant Gajbhiye: Everybody from the quality department, production department, shipping department, used to gather at one place. We used to go all around our machines, including the maintenance team to see how things are, the fives, everything he used to note down in his diary. and within that, after the last five minutes, he used to highlight the top priority things.

[00:37:32] Ishant Gajbhiye: So what happened? It gave people a sense of teamwork, involvement, and we were given an opportunity to speak up as to what was done, what resources are required. So that’s helped me and that that is what I’m also doing right now. I try to go out on the floor and rather than sharing my experience, I try to ask people because to a place that where I work right now, people who are working on the line has been in that particular job.

[00:38:00] Ishant Gajbhiye: Before even I was born. So I need to give them the respect because they know how things are going on. They might be able to provide me more information than I can provide them. So that is one thing. Other thing is, my director, he was more of like a data guy. He used to ask for all the data and he used to come up, and say like, okay, this is a great data.

[00:38:22] Ishant Gajbhiye: This is a trending in our sister plant. They have the similar kind of symptoms and. It ended up being broken down of this machine, or they found that the warranty in so and so defects were high and we were able to create like a preventive measure before that. And that caused us to have a high risk program into, let’s say, launch of a pro converted into the launch of a program two weeks before the launch date.

[00:38:48] Ishant Gajbhiye: so these are the things which I learned from them, and I try to see how I can implement them in my work right now.

[00:38:55]  Josh Santo: Love it. And I, again, I think it also, there’s an element of what you described earlier, which is seeing these challenges as opportunities to learn and then eventually one day. We’ll all be in the position to pass down those lessons, those lessons that have been learned the hard way, which is the purpose of the show.

[00:39:16]  Josh Santo: It’s to share the lessons that were learned the hard way so that folks don’t have to learn it the hard way. Now, a common perspective that I hear is that quality is a cost center. From your perspective, is that the right way to think about quality in manufacturing?

[00:39:36] Ishant Gajbhiye: Josh Quality is not a cost center.

[00:39:40]  Josh Santo: Not a cost center.

[00:39:41] Ishant Gajbhiye: It’s actually a value center.

[00:39:44]  Josh Santo: How so?

[00:39:45] Ishant Gajbhiye: So every dollar that you invest in. Quality improvement will help you to prevent approximate $10 in the field, failures, warranty, claims, line stoppages, or even customer satisfaction. That is my perspective and the reason I have this perspective, ’cause I feel, I view quality in this three ways.

[00:40:12] Ishant Gajbhiye: One, quality helps you, quality is like a risk reduction engine. It helps you to optimize your processes. And third, it’s really, a good tool to have a high return on investment generator. So, for example, in my course of career, the team that I have been a part of, there were several projects that we did that cumulative, if I have to put, a qu a quantifiable KPI on, that would be roughly around two to $3 million of savings, into various different projects.

[00:40:54] Ishant Gajbhiye: Involving continuous improvements, scam protection programs, and so on. and I’ve observed that I have been part of some phenomenal people, phenomenal team that has helped me and that helped me to change this perspective. not only that, this is monetary, I have seen my director worked with sister plants in North America, took help from plants in India and some European sister plants and improved KPI up to 40% in six months. And these were all guys who were a part of the quality team. So, so if I want to summarize. Quality is not an overhead. I feel like it’s more of like an r and d investment in process reliability.

[00:41:42]  Josh Santo: Every dollar you invest saves you $10. That is. Certainly a bold claim and it’s a strong one. You should be bold. You should be able to speak to that. I like that you’re reframing it. It’s not a cost center, it’s an investment. The same as you would invest in understanding which products to bring to market or which products or capabilities or changes customers require.

[00:42:07]  Josh Santo: What’s needed from their perspective. So quality is not It costs center quality is an investment that’s going to save you money in the long term, maybe even arguably make you money. If you’re known for quality, what kind of impact does that have on retention and additional sales, et cetera.

[00:42:28]  Josh Santo: Now when I hear that and I hear that quality can save you a significant amount of money, well, I’m thinking, okay, well. If quality can have an impact, let’s make sure quality can have that impact. That’s not always the case with a lot of manufacturing facilities. So, Han, from your perspective, what do you think is often holding quality and the potential impact that the quality team can have?

[00:42:57]  Josh Santo: What do you think is holding them back?

[00:43:00] Ishant Gajbhiye: Yeah. over the course of my career and so far what I have observed, Josh, I feel, there are a couple of things. If done right can help quality to reach their potentials. number one, I feel is under investment. Under investment in terms of training tools and having skilled people. training in quality are expensive. It is recurring because it is not a lifelong, you have to keep yourself, scaling up, recertify, recertifying yourself, so that that requires some money. so sometimes some organization, they may, or may not opt for investing in such kind of activities. so that is the first reason. if everybody understands that the quality in their individual persp, respective organization can go higher.

[00:43:48] Ishant Gajbhiye: and that’s why you will see there are certain companies, which thrive, in the challenging time as compared to the companies which does not thrive. And the second thing is slow adaptation of technology. Now if you keep on thinking about clipboards, paper, trails and everything, and you are not looking into what the new era is bringing and trying to accommodate to your department, you might be holding the true potential of yourself.

[00:44:17] Ishant Gajbhiye: For example, in today’s day and age, data analytics, AI driven diagnostics, or maybe having a digital, control plan and fema because they are having softwares for them. If you are not adapting to that, you’re actually not reaching to your full potential. And third, which I feel, but I feel this is a very, very important point, is lack of integration. why? Because sometimes. This is, I have faced as well, quality sometimes receive information at the last rather than having our involvement in the early stage. So, I do not want to pinpoint everybody, but everybody comes under pressure. So if some certain things goes wrong on the line, try to navigate those things within themselves.

[00:45:05] Ishant Gajbhiye: rather than having an early involvement, of it. So if we are able to focus on these three points and try to see how we can improvise on that, pinpoint on it, you will see a very different, quality department and you will see a very different organization. and one of the example, which I will give you, which is historically true, if you see in the days, when Japanese cars overtook the American car, the main.

[00:45:31] Ishant Gajbhiye: The reason was the quality perspective, the way the quality was for that particular company as compared to our American cars, actually, led them into the competition. And today you will see every other company is trying to see how we can incorporate those principles in their organization.

[00:45:51]  Josh Santo: Absolutely. The, I think the quote was, something along the lines of make Japan known for quality

[00:45:59]  Josh Santo: at that time. and it certainly had an impact. I mean, how often do you hear about the resale value of a Toyota? Because it’s high quality throughout the years. and Toyota, of course, to your point.

[00:46:13]  Josh Santo: Developed, you know, the Toyota production system, which has helped drive a lot of the standards and practices that are in place today. So, absolutely right. Just to recap, what might be holding your quality organization back under? Investment training tools, skilled people. slow adoption of technology, not having, um, some of the more modern, I won’t say the latest and greatest, but at least some of the more modern.

[00:46:42]  Josh Santo: Tools out there that can make your job a little bit easier. Maybe make the task that you’re trying to perform a little bit faster, make it a little bit more efficient that way. You mentioned ai, digital tools, et cetera, and then the lack of integration of qualities, specifically not bringing quality into the equation.

[00:47:05]  Josh Santo: More upstream. If you are, if you’re reactive about quality, that is a sign that your quality team may not be equipped or may not be in a position to have the true impact. That the quality team can have, which is that every dollar in saving you $10. So if that’s something that’s appealing to you and you’ve can look around and check the box that you think you’re under investing in training tools and people and you’re not really using modern technology, maybe paper and clipboards for some of those audits and non-conformances that you had mentioned and just not bringing quality into the equation, you might be.

[00:47:47]  Josh Santo: Under investing in your quality resources. Let’s talk about just a couple more things ’cause I know we’re, we’re getting close to time and I wanna be respectful of your time, but I wanna throw this one out there. We’re kind of switch some gears up. What keeps you up at night as a quality manager?

[00:48:06] Ishant Gajbhiye: Wow. I think for me, my biggest fear is one of my customer is shutting down because something that came from my plant that is my biggest fear over the course of my career, I have been, really grateful to be a part of team where we have led multiple warranty reviews, had, various field failure analysis, and also address a lot of customer complaint.

[00:48:32] Ishant Gajbhiye: These are all real risks, and they also have a reputation damaging aspect. if you are not addressing them on a timely basis, the escalation might go, at a such a higher level that you might be jeopardizing the program itself or the contract itself. so this is my biggest fear, but apart from that as well, there are several things that keeps running on my mind.

[00:48:58] Ishant Gajbhiye: during the, while I’m trying to sleep or thinking about other aspect like Changes in the QMS standards. Like recently, they are changing IATF/ISO changes. So making sure that we are aligning with that we know what actually those changes are. one of the, some things which I’m not sure if everybody, will, agree with me is like documentation mirroring that means. I’m saying that my process runs A, B, C. My documentation also shows A, B, C. It should not show A, B, C, D. That is my another fear because it has happened with me in the past where when external auditor comes in, we tell them our process run in certain way, but the documentation reflect a little bit. D. and one of the most important things which I constantly work on, is make sure that people are following standard work.

[00:49:53] Ishant Gajbhiye: They are not operating on a tribal knowledge. when we work in an industry, you come across people who have been working there for decades. And if you let them work with their knowledge when they started and are not making them relevant to what the current standards are, you’re actually preparing them to fail.

[00:50:14] Ishant Gajbhiye: So these are a couple of things that actually keeps me going even during the nighttime.

[00:50:20]  Josh Santo: A customer shutting down because you shift something that you shouldn’t have shipped. You, you didn’t catch it, you, you didn’t, it was a defect. Could have a whole slew of impacts affect your cost of equality, like we talked about. you also mentioned changes in quality management system standards.

[00:50:39]  Josh Santo: and you also talked about this concept of documentation mirroring. I’d never, I’ve never heard it put it put that way before, but I like that it’s that idea of. Process versus reality. Here’s what should be happening and what’s actually happening. I wanna ask a follow up question, Sean, specifically about customer shutting down.

[00:50:58] Ishant Gajbhiye: Mm-hmm.

[00:51:00]  Josh Santo: Take your, take your quality manager hat off for a second. Is Sean, as a person, why is that something that matters to you, the customer shutting down? Talk to me just about your own beliefs.

[00:51:15] Ishant Gajbhiye: Hey, at the end of the day, we are working for a paycheck. If our customer is shutting down, that means we are gonna lose that contract. If that continues, that means there is a huge loss of money and history knows when a company starts to lose money. there are a lot of changes that happen, so if you like to break it down into a minute level.

[00:51:40] Ishant Gajbhiye: Anything that impacts the source of money that is coming into my organization indirectly impacts me too, in both financial aspect and mental aspect. So financial aspect, it’s very clear there might be loss of pay or there might be loss of people mentally. when you are on a fire burner, that means now you have to leave aside everything, including your personal life and try to extinguish that fire that has been burning.

[00:52:13] Ishant Gajbhiye: So there are so many different consequences of that small customer going down. so for me, that becomes very high priority item. Mm-hmm.

[00:52:25]  Josh Santo: If there is an issue like that, if a customer is shutting down. That’s affecting the people on the customer side. It’s their customers. That’s the workers there as well. And that trickles back to your organization, which then affects you and your team and all of the people that we’ve talked about throughout this conversation.

[00:52:46]  Josh Santo: So there’s a bit of just. That personal responsibility of making sure that the people are taken care of. That’s what I’m hearing from what you’re saying. There’s something about passion for making sure that people are taken care of. That’s great. One last question for you, Han before we go. You are a manufacturing professional who is earlier in his career than the average manufacturing pro.

[00:53:12]  Josh Santo: What do you think would help manufacturers appeal to a younger workforce?

[00:53:18] Ishant Gajbhiye: Yeah. Okay. So, again. There are multiple ways how we can address this particular question. I’ll put myself into the seat. What I like to do in my department, I like to have a clear growth path. If somebody’s coming to working for my team, they are my responsibility. and their success is also my responsibility.

[00:53:43] Ishant Gajbhiye: how I know this because I was given the same choice when I.

[00:53:46]  Josh Santo: I

[00:53:47] Ishant Gajbhiye: All my previous manager, they had a re clear expectation and a clear growth plan as to what needs to be done in order to achieve from point A to point B. So that is one thing we need to do. Second, make your manufacturing a high tech. Now that the younger generation, which are coming and which will be a part of our organization moving ahead, are all tech savvy, the curriculum has changed.

[00:54:11] Ishant Gajbhiye: People are focusing more on automation, data analytics. Smart factories, industry 4.0. So if you are not, adapting to those change, you might not

[00:54:22] Ishant Gajbhiye: be.

[00:54:22] Ishant Gajbhiye: able to appeal to the younger talent. And third and most important thing, which lot of organization are having like a tug of war is flexibility and modern culture. Manufacturing is such an industry where you will see people working from decades. I repeat that sentence again. and the culture that was before. versus the culture, which are we seeing right now? A lot of people are having tough time accepting that, for example, hybrid work, work, culture, where possible, recognition, giving credits were due. Aspects of mentorship, and more than just paperwork, focusing on actual meaningful problem solving. Because if you see Josh in today’s day and age, the new generation or younger talent are looking for contribution. They’re not looking for reputation.

[00:55:15]  Josh Santo: Clear growth path, adopting high tech manufacturing, offering flexibility in your working culture. All three really great points on what could make the manufacturing environment, the manufacturing culture a little bit more appealing to younger generation. Of course, this is a very  complex topic. There’s the ideas of how do you expose people and paint it in a positive light.

[00:55:43]  Josh Santo: You also have to recognize there’s some tough competition out there for manufacturing jobs that, that, that call center job that I had mentioned right out of school, it’s apple. So this was at the time where Apple was at the height. Could do no wrong. at the, at that experience. So one, there’s already that appeal of like, oh, I’m working for Apple.

[00:56:05]  Josh Santo: But two, once a quarter they would have a beer bash. What was the beer bash? Well, there was beer. Like in the name it, it applies, there’d be some sort of entertainment. It was almost like a mini festival on the office grounds. And so on that Friday, you know, two o’clock hits or something like that, you would be allowed after some coordination with your manager.

[00:56:27]  Josh Santo: not everyone got to go. Somebody had to stay in, do the work, but we had a nice rotation going on. But my point being there, what a fun thing that we got to do. While working at Apple, and I call that out because you mentioned flexibility in modern culture, and that is a big one. and it really requires just thinking differently about the approach to the type of environment that you nurture.

[00:56:52]  Josh Santo: I’ll give another example. I talked with a continuous improvement manager and I asked him about were they struggling with retention and turnover issues. and he told me no. This is not something that they’re struggling with other sites are, but their site wasn’t. I said, well, what’s the difference?

[00:57:10]  Josh Santo: And he said, well, let me give you an example. When my shift is over, I’m still there for about two hours and I’m checking in with folks, how are you doing? How is the soccer game on Saturday? And it’s really putting that personal people’s attention. I’ve talked with manufacturers who have changed how they schedule shifts.

[00:57:28]  Josh Santo: In order to support people’s lives outside of the environment. So there’s all sorts of ways to be creative. One of the central themes that I’ve learned is you have to make it easy for people to work for you, and if you keep that in mind. A lot of things will follow. So anyway, I’ll get off my soapbox.

[00:57:47]  Josh Santo: Sean, what a great conversation today. I really appreciate you taking us through your perspective as a quality manager. Where you started in, in your, your, your mindset, where your journey took you, the lessons that you learned along the way, the things that you would actively encourage people to explore in order to improve their situation.

[00:58:06]  Josh Santo: Great conversation. Thanks so much for joining us today.

[00:58:10] Ishant Gajbhiye: Thank you for the opportunity, Josh, and for allowing me to share my journey and some of my sites, which I learned from course.