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A Master of Images A Master of Quality A Master of Technology Development A Master of Environmentalism
Note: Departmental affiliations and job titles were accurate as of this publication.
There’s a funny story in the world of physics:
It’s night, and you come across a man searching for something underneath a streetlight.
You ask him, “What are you looking for?”
He replies, “I dropped my keys.”
You then ask, “Where did you drop them?”
He says, “Over there, in the bushes where it’s dark.”
You naturally say, “Then why are you looking here?”
He answers: “The light is better and it’s easier.”
This little anecdote mocks researchers who should have known that the key to the “solution” lies in the dark bushes but who decide not to delve into them. What Mikio Yasuda, Department General Manager, Quality Assurance Division II, Audio-Visual Systems Group says is this: “Sharp’s Business Creed states: ‘Accept every challenge with a positive attitude.’ This statement stands in exact opposition to the content of this little story. By consistently diving into the bushes, Sharp has continued to create new products that lead the industry, and I suspect that doing so built the foundations that Sharp rests on to this day.” The bushes represent the impossible-to-solve problems, and we could say that the techniques to accomplish the impossible are the “professional skills” that Sharp has built up and accumulated over the years. The challenge of the impossible appears not only in new product planning and technology development, but also naturally encompasses the field of quality assurance. This may be the spirit that is the expression of Sharp’s corporate culture.
At a certain automaker, the term “defect rate” is missing from their vocabulary. The reason for this might seem obvious: they take it for granted that there will be zero defects. Mr. Yasuda was transferred from the Head Office to take charge of the Quality Assurance Division at the same time that the Kameyama Plant came on-line. He first set a target of cutting the defect rate in half, and he accomplished this feat in six months. When Mr. Yasuda was about to set the next goal of wanting to cut the defect rate in half again, he learned that the AQUOS LCD TV would be a product positioned on a level equivalent to a “car”, i.e., it would be a big-ticket item. Naturally, he made the next target “0 ppm* defects,” which is regarded as a perpetual problem confronting the industry. This is what launched the challenge to “make the impossible possible,” the true “dark bushes” of product quality.
* ppm (parts per million) is one one-millionth (1 ppm = 0.0001%). Normally, if a defect or problem occurs on the production line, it will be found by inspection and corrected at the time of shipment so that the finished product has perfect quality. “0 ppm defects” is an effort to ensure that defects never occur in the first place as the product is assembled on the production line.
Mr. Yasuda thought that there was scant possibility of achieving zero defects using the conventional approach of inspecting the finished product, and that a manufacturing process which generates no defects was necessary. Mr. Yasuda began to research quality control, starting from the basics. The ultimate breakthrough came in the form of HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points), a quality control system for processing food to be consumed by astronauts in outer space developed by NASA, the U.S. space agency. This system is designed for defect-free product manufacturing and the quality (safety) of space food made using this approach is 100% guaranteed.
Mr. Yasuda worked out his own original quality assurance system based on this HACCP system which he adapted to the AQUOS. The basis for his approach to quality control is what he calls “Predictive Quality Control.” This system anticipates and predicts the causes of defects that might possibly occur at each step of the process, including design, components, and production. By looking ahead in this way, it ensures that these potential causes are quashed so that no defects appear regardless of any variations in conditions during the process. Expressed more clearly, it is a “defect-free production process.”
Nearly 6,000 separate components are used in the AQUOS. Parts dealers and manufacturers also number about 250 individual companies. Implementing Predictive Quality Control only inside Sharp would not be sufficient to achieve zero defects. Each part delivered must also be defect-free. For this reason, Mr. Yasuda needed to make sure that Predictive Quality Control took firm root at each parts manufacturer as well. Accordingly, what he began were AQUOS Quality Seminars. Mr. Yasuda himself visits each parts maker to introduce the quality targets set for the AQUOS that Sharp is striving to achieve. He introduces the methodology behind Predictive Quality Control and works to help put it into practice. At these seminars, the first thing Mr. Yasuda talks about is “changing your business velocity,” in other words, accelerating the pace of business operations. Mr. Yasuda uses this example: up to now, Sharp had been running at the industry speed of 100 kph, but when Kameyama Plant No. 1 was completed, it had to run at 300 kph, and after Kameyama Plant No. 2 became operational, at 500 kph. Since Sharp is running at 500 kph, Mr. Yasuda speaks passionately about the need for parts manufacturers to also match this speed in terms of quality, cost and delivery time. He says he gets a great response from almost every company to whom the seminar is presented.
Competition on a global scale is becoming increasingly intense. Overseas manufacturers know all too well that the competitive advantage that Japanese manufacturers enjoy lies in product quality. Mr. Yasuda asserts that, “The time when they compete with us on quality will most certainly come.” But he has the look of confidence to face them. The level of AQUOS quality is now entering lofty new territory.
During this interview, the phrase, “Sharp is not what it used to be anymore,” came up many times. However, the face of Mr. Yasuda challenging the “zero defects” target today is the face of the Sharp as it has always been—continually challenging the impossible.
A Master of Images A Master of Quality A Master of Technology Development A Master of Environmentalism
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