QFDI Newsletter,
April 2011
Thoughts on Disaster — from Japan
"I thought we would die!" e-mailed a Japanese professor in
Ishinomaki City who attended the 2009 QFD Symposium in Savannah.
"The tsunami you saw on the news came to the street just below my hill-top
house. I feel like I am in a science fiction movie."
 As
you are aware, Japan has suffered a four-fold disaster: M9.0 earthquake + 15m
tsunami + nuclear radiation that threatens health, housing, farming, fisheries,
and transportation + electricity shortages throughout Tokyo and other eastern
Japan prefectures that have disrupted supply lines both domestically and
internationally.
We quality professionals are seeing many of our successful improvement methods
in a new light. Have we missed something? Did we make mistakes? What can we
offer to address these immediate concerns and prevent them in the future?
First, all our Japanese colleagues and their families are
safe, and thank the world community for their caring thoughts and prayers for
those directly and indirectly impacted by this disaster.
Several of the medical professionals who have presented at or attended QFD
Symposia are busy providing round-the-clock relief services to the victims
despite working in the most difficult conditions. Others are volunteering at
their university shelters for victims who have lost their homes.
The QFD Institute asked several of our Japanese colleagues to share their
thoughts with us -- both personal and professional.
This and future newsletters will try to summarize their comments and questions
in the hope that we can generate an international dialogue on these events and a
new role for quality in general and QFD in particular.
Note also that there have been papers published at past International Symposium
on QFD (ISQFD), on the use of QFD in the Japanese nuclear and hydropower
industry that may add insight to this discussion.
Here is the voice of the Japanese QFD community.
Job Safety — workers at the troubled
nuclear power are doing everything they can to bring the situation under
control. They are literally staking their lives on this, despite the knowledge
of radiation risk. Their sense of mission and responsibility is something beyond
words, we owe them tremendously.
Nuclear Power — the industry will face numerous challenges, all of them
very difficult issues, such as site selection conditions, building structure,
nuclear power device issues, disaster preventive measures, how to prevent
radiation pollution from spreading, etc.
Alternative Energy — solar power, deep sea boring in the Japan Sea,
geothermal, windmills, fuel cells, etc. All of these must be addressed from
political policy perspectives.
Dealing with Improbable Events (Black Swan) — This earthquake was a
natural disaster that far exceeded conventional human knowledge. It reminded us
of how vulnerable we are in the power of nature. The sea walls and barriers
which we thought to be completely adequate based on the past experience proved
to be utterly useless in the face of an earthquake and aftermath tsunami beyond
our imagination.
Design for Function — Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO, the operator of the
Fukushima Nuclear Power Station) found itself in the ironic situation where the
electric power company could not supply electric power for safe operation of
their nuclear power plant.
Design for Safety — From a QFD perspective, safety is clearly one of the
most critical demanded qualities for a nuclear power plant. Needless to say,
safety is strictly emphasized in all areas of the nuclear power plant process
such as design, construction, operation, maintenance, service, etc. Typical
methods include redundancy, Fault Tree Analysis, Failure Modes and Effects
Analysis, and implementation of thorough and regular maintenance checkups for
preventing an accident or malfunction from happening.
In addition, numerous sensors are installed all over the facilities so that even
the slightest abnormality can be detected or even predicted beforehand. In this
sense, the nuclear power plant was considered a safe system from a technology
and engineering viewpoint, and thus their construction was permitted. TEPCO's
Radiation Management Group at Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant Technology
even received a Quality Innovation Award in 2000 from the Union of Japanese
Scientists and Engineers (JUSE).
Value Engineering — This method is one of the basic approaches in QFD to
help reduce cost, by graphing its relationship to function. This value curve
helps decide what level of performance based on realistic expectations. Based on
historical research, the nuclear plant was built to withstand a M8.0 earthquake.
Had it been "supposed" that a M9.0 earthquake would occur (greater than the
highest conceivable level), the increased cost may have made the project
unfeasible.
Role of QFD — Since its beginnings in the 1960s, many new tools and
techniques have strengthened the method. The essence of QFD is its design
documentation. Unlike tangible attributes such as the dimensions of a gear, for
example, that can be documented in a drawing, intangibles like quality are about
defining intent and communicating it to subsequent activities. In QFD, this is
done through documentation such as the matrices and tables we use. While QFD is
absolutely useful where requirements are known, what should be its role in
unexpected or improbable scenarios? Efforts are now underway to create an ISO
standard for QFD and this must be emphasized.
Politics and Policy — the response and aid to the disaster area is taking
too long. Because Japan is a parliamentary system, the power of the prime
minister is rather limited compared with that of the U.S. president. The
Japanese system also requires group consensus and this prevents speedy
decisions. Our government needs a special fast decision process to be employed
in life-threatening national emergencies. Many foreign NGOs arrived in Japan
immediately to assist local volunteers, while the government waited nearly a
week.
Communication — the government is responsible for providing accurate and
timely information to its citizens. When data is unclear, trust is broken and
people may panic and engage in behaviors such as hoarding goods.
The Japanese People — in
the midst of this unthinkable disaster, the Japanese people have remained civil
and orderly, sharing and helping others. Panic, theft, and violence have been
absent - attesting to the strong will of this culture to do what is right. We
have much to be proud about.
We will continue discussion in the next issue. Please share
your thoughts with us by email to
QFD
Institute
Copyright © 2011 QFD Institute
& G. Mazur. All Rights
Reserved.
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