CHANGE YOUR MENTALITY, CHANGE YOUR LIFE

According to Wikipedia, thought can refer to ideas or arrangement of ideas that result from thinking. This simply means that the human mind/brain is a production room which produces ideas using thought as raw material. As with no raw material, no products so is no thinking, no ideas. Your mentality as a person is determined by the thoughts that dominate your mind. Your mentality is your habitual or characteristic mental attitude that determines how you will interpret or respond to situations.

Your mentality is habitual because you follow a particular pattern repeatedly for a while and become accustomed to it. Your mentality is attitudinal because it displays your disposition, feeling or position to a situation. As with perspective, your mental disposition is never right or wrong but can be positive or negative. What comes to you is dependent on what you invite. What you see is dependent on where you stand. If you stand at one spot all the time then you will see the same thing all the time. 

Your attitude in life determines your altitude. It is a known fact that people with bad attitude, negative mentality, who don’t make time for thinking never change their life and don’t achieve much. All of the people who have made a mark in this life have had positive mentality. None of them had even the slightest amount of negativity in or around them. This goes to show that what you get out of life is a direct consequence of the mentality you have. 

Let us look at 2 real life scenarios. 

1. I was discussing opportunities in Edmonton, Canada with a friend. He told me in plain terms that I cannot earn $200,000/annum in Edmonton. His reason or rather excuse is because the oil price has crashed and so the economy is bad. I agreed with him that the economy was bad and affirmed to him that one day soon I will make that amount of money and even more. He laughed at me. 

2. This lady who isn’t rich dresses very well daily because she knows how to shop. She has been applying to help people shop but is always told such jobs don’t exist. I told her she doesn’t need to apply for any job but can create a service people can use and pay her for her skills. She agreed to explore this. We sat down and talked. I gave her valuable tips free of charge. 

The guy in 1 above has a negative mentality which has caused him to stand at a place. He can’t see any different because he has refused to change his mentality by changing his stand point. He is locked in a mental block which ensures he can’t think of anything outside of crude oil. Because of this he is blind to opportunities that can be exploited to earn $200,000/annum. For instance, there are people in Edmonton who don’t work with oil companies but are earning that amount. Because of his negative mentality he can’t be one of them. Right? 

The lady in 2 above had a situation but after speaking with me changed her mentality by changing her stand point from someone looking for a job to someone who can create a job for herself. The details of the advice she received is a business secret which I cannot reveal here. In one year of conscientiously following the tips she was given, which she agreed to do, she will change her life for good. 

I was told that if I got the flu shot I would get sick for a while then recover. I did get the flu shot but I haven’t fallen sick and I won’t. I told the person who told me this, two actually, that I won’t fall sick. The next day I started feeling sick but I continued to speak to myself reaffirming I won’t get sick. What I was feeling slowly went away. This is how much a positive mental attitude can do for you. Being an activity as described at the beginning, you must create time for producing ideas by thinking. To generate ideas through thinking is the only difference between man and animals which is the reason man is called a higher animal. If you refuse to heed this simple advice you are deciding to remove the ‘higher’ which describes you as an animal. Hahahaha. Just kidding. One word for the wise, many words for the foolish.

PATIENCE Vs PERSEVERANCE

Many people use patience and perseverance interchangeably and assume they mean the same thing. They don't. The difference between perseverance and patience is that while you persevere you are working hard KNOWING things will change and that when they do you will be ready but while being patient you do nothing HOPING things will change but you won't be ready when they do. 

What are people who are sick in hospitals called? Patients. What do patients do apart from lie on the bed and hope to get better? Nothing. They only Hope. 

Being content to wait if necessary; not losing one's temper while waiting is one definition of PATIENT. How can one be content to wait? Do you do anything while waiting in a reception room? No. 

To persist steadfastly in pursuit of an undertaking, task, journey, or goal, even if hindered by distraction,difficulty, obstacles, or discouragement is the definition of PERSEVERE. You don't improve by being patient because you don't improve by sitting and waiting. You improve by persevering because while you persevere you are doing something. When you are patient you are sitting and HOPING something happens. When eventually this thing happens you may or may not be ready. When you persevere you are working and know something will happen and when this thing happens you won't be taken by surprise. 

It is good to be patient. In fact we were told that a patient dog gets the fattest bone. I am sure this was said when there were few dogs around. The dog that perseveres and follows its master to hunt and the dog that patiently stays at home wishing for the master to return, which gets the bone? 

I usually advise people to be patient in perseverance and not persevere in patience. Those are two different things. When you are patient in perseverance you are working and being patient. This means you are working hard and smart. When you persevere in patience you are simply waiting hard. The person who picks up a magazine while waiting in the reception room is patient in perseverance while the person who just sits and waits is persevering in patience. The person is just waiting hard. 

To live life successfully one must have a next level mentality. This is the bottom line of all human endeavour. Everything we do today is geared towards making us better and giving us assurance for tomorrow. Unfortunately only a handful of people take practical steps to see this happen. If this is the mindset you gave you may stop reading this if you are not willing to change that mindset. 

To fully grasp this article, you need to know a little about comfort zone. The comfort zone is a psychological state in which a person feels familiar, at ease, in control and experiences low anxiety and stress. In this zone a steady level of performance is possible. A lot of people are in this zone and many don't even know they are in it. In the western world, once an individual reaches the age of 18 he or she must leave the parent's house. This is a good description of leaving a comfort zone. At the age of 18 this shift must take place. There is no waiting for the right opportunity or time. Consequently, you find individuals preparing themselves for this move away from the comfort zone. Adulthood has come and one must fend for oneself. In our various lives/careers, we refuse to or are so afraid to move out of our comfort zone. Note that in the comfort zone a steady level of performance is possible. This doesn't sound great. In fact it sounds average to me but this is where most people are at the moment and are being patient. Because a steady level of performance is possible, not even achieved, many are happy to wait patiently for things to turn around. Do not be caught persevering in patience or waiting hard. 

Let's view perseverance from another perspective. Stepping out of the comfort zone raises anxiety and generates a stress response. This results in an enhanced level of concentration and focus of channelled properly. 

This is what happens when you step out of your comfort zone. Surely you will have challenges but your enhanced level of concentration and focus will come in handy. It is at this state that perseverance is needed. While out of your comfort zone all your efforts should be geared towards attaining a higher level of comfort zone. Like the 18 year old who leaves his parents house, you must be prepared to take advantage of any opportunity that opens up to you. This is where personal development comes in. The objective is to continously sharpen your strengths and improve on your weaknesses. What needs to be done is to decide where you are today and where you wanna be tomorrow. Write this down. Plot a graph of the steps you need to take to get to where you need to be tomorrow and stay the course. That's all. What would you do? Be patient or persevere? Choice is yours.

IT PAYS TO WORK HARD

"The road to success is not easy to navigate but with hard work, drive and passion it is possible to achieve the American dream." 

- - Tommy Hilfiger

"I do not know anyone who has got to the top without hard work. That is the recipe. It will jot always get you to the top but should get you pretty close." 

- - Margaret Thatcher 

"The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses - behind the lines, in the gym and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights."

 - - Mohammed Ali 

"It is how hard you work at night when no one is watching that determines how well you do or how far you get in the morning when everyone is watching." 

- - Nnaemeka Udoka 

 The desire for success is not a guarantee for success. It is good to dream of success but only those who persist in hard work will achieve success. While dreamers are asleep, it is those who wake up and work hard to pursue their dreams that see those dreams come to pass. We have all been to malls where we see items beautifully displayed on shelves. How many of us know the effort back room staff put in just to endure we have a pleasant shopping experience always? Many of us have gone to live shows. All we see are bright lights, hear great songs and watch dance moves. Do you know the amount of hours put in to hone those things we go to see? Have you ever imagined the amount of work that goes into preparing finger-licking dishes? 

We work hard alone but the whole world comes to celebrate our success. Success is not accidental. It is planned. Success is not brought by luck. It is hard work that provides the best guarantee of success. Find anyone who has won a lottery and ask questions. Indeed, hardwork may not guarantee success but it brings you quite close to it. Some may argue that there are people who worked and continue to work hard but haven't become successful. This is true. I will tell why later. My point for now is that hard work is the most assured way of becoming genuinely successful. These days people think more of what success brings and less of hard work that brings success. Such thinking is not right. You cannot detach a house from its foundation or build a house from the roof. While success is the house you see above the ground a lot of work goes into the foundation underneath. The tree that desires to have branches that reach heaven (success) must have roots that reach deep into hell (hard work). 

More and more youth of today dream of success (they are sleeping) while less and less are getting successful (the few who are awake and hustling). Work ethic has become so poor that many want fat pay for doing little or nothing. There is no shortcut to success. Success is not a destination but a journey that never ends. This is why you work twice harder after you have become successful than you did to become successful. You must work hard. 

A lot of people say it is wrong to work hard but that one should work smart. Many do not understand what this means so I will attempt and explanation. Working smart does not mean less work. It simply means strategic hard work. Why do you think managers learn strategic planning? To cut a tree with an axe or chain saw are both hard work. The difference is that the former appears thoughtless while the latter appears thoughtful. Someone who got tired of taking too long to cut a tree with an axe must have sat down to think of an improvement. It takes thought to craft a strategy and thinking is also hard work. 

Hardwork should be embellished with strategy. It is pointless working hard without applying thought. It is akin to expending energy without motion. The basic thing here is to not just want success but to embrace the recipe for success which is hard work. It is not a coincidence that luck smiles mostly on hard working people. They are better prepared. Luck has been defined as preparation that meets opportunity. If you do nothing and hope to be successful you will only get the things those who work hard left over. A word is enough for the wise.

WATCH YOUR HABITS

Habit is who you are. We are all products of habit. Everything, or at least, majority of what we do comes from habit. 

From the day we are born we start learning habits. How to do this and how to do that. What is a habit? I will advance several definitions.

1. It is an action performed repeatedly and automatically usually without awareness

2. A settled or regular tendency of practice especially one that is hard to give up. 

3. A behaviour pattern acquired by frequent repetition of psychological exposure that shows itself in regularity or increased facility of performance. 

4. An acquired behaviour pattern that is repeated regularly and becomes almost involuntary. 

5. A routine of behaviour that occurs regularly and tends to our subconsciously. 

KEYWORDS: Behaviour, Acquired, Repeatedly, Automatic/Subconscious, Practice

Before I continue, permit me to enlighten you on the mind. A person who initially starts learning how to drive finds it hard to hold a conversation as all the focus is on the different driving manoeuvres. This person is driving with the conscious mind. After hours upon hours of practice this same person can hold a conversation and still drive well. Driving becomes automatic that it's carried out without thought: the subconscious mind is now used for driving. 

We can see that there are two parts of the mind: the conscious mind (CM) and subconscious mind (SM). The CM is like the RAM in computer language while the SM is like the hard disk. The CM operates in the present while the SM operates in the past by assessing database developed and built by experience/training/repetition. The CM is responsible for LOGIC while the SM is responsible for HABIT. 

It is important to know how we use the power of the mind to form habits. Our habits make us who we are. The way you write, talk, cook, walk, wear your shoes, dress up are habits. The way you respond emotionally is a habit. Nigeria is the way it is today because our political leaders have formed the habit of impunity. Smoking is habit, a bad one, just as yawning without putting a palm over the mouth is. Even the way you sit on the toilet is a habit. Habits are honed by hours of practice. There are good and bad habits.

 

A good habit is a behaviour that is beneficial to ones' physical or mental health, often linked to a high level of discipline and self control. A bad habit is the exact opposite. Basically, the moment your level of discipline and self control drops on any particular thing and you follow this pattern repeatedly a bad habit is formed. Same thing goes for a good habit. I can never overemphasise the fact that we are what we do repeatedly. This is why it has been said, I can't remember by who (Aristotle, I think), that excellence is not an act but a habit. 

Is this not why we have or should have Standard Operating Procedures, SOPs, for everything? We shouldn't just think of SOP only at work. An SOP tells us the best practice or logical sequence of how to carry out a task. For instance, if you are hot tempered, have you drawn out an SOP on how not to get upset at the slightest provocation? If you write down this SOP and follow it repeatedly for a while you form a new habit. 

Bad habits are very easy to pick up but quite hard to drop. In fact to drop a bad habit you must replace it with a good habit which you learn deliberately. We pick up bad habits easily because they require a reduced or the lowest level of discipline/self control to acquire. Bad habits are formed when we allow ourselves to dwell in the 'comfort zone' of no/low standards/rules. The moment an act becomes comfortable chances are that standards, discipline or self control have been compromised. Bad habits, comfort and ease all sleep on the same bed. From the above, you can deduce why good habits appear hard to pick up. They require lots of discipline and self control. 

Get pen and paper, write down the bad habits you know you have, then write the good habits you know you have. You may discover that you wrote down more bad habits than good habits. Don't be alarmed though. It's not abnormal. What is not normal is allowing this to subsist. I will show you how you can develop good habits and use them to replace bad habits. Design an SOP for this good habit you want to pick. This becomes your program. Every habit is a program stored in your subconscious mind or your hard disk. What I am going to write now is called DELETION and INSERTION (D&I), in my parlance. Delete a bad habit and insert a new one. At a particular time(s) everyday pull out this SOP and read it carefully. The language used to write this matters. Personalise it. 

The more you read this SOP to yourself the more it gets engraved into your subconscious mind. Given time, say after a month, you will notice that you are beginning to make 'mistakes' in the way you execute the bad habit you are fighting. At this stage what you are doing is training your subconscious mind to master the new skill. Now begin to practice this new skill. Do this repeatedly for a while and there you are.

 

As I close, what school teaches us is habit. This is why courses are measured in hours. It actually means hours of exposure to a discipline. When students go on industrial training it's habit they are sent to pick up and master. You become excellent with good or bad habits through dedicated practice. It is up to you to choose which habits you pick or drop. 

QUALITY MANAGEMENT: CLEANERS AND CLEANING

A good Quality Management System, QMS, is one that ensures that all quality parameters associated with the manufacture of products are strictly adhered to with documentary evidence. This includes but not limited to supplier audits, raw material receipt, analysis and storage, in-process checks, finished goods checks, storage/warehousing etc. Every good QMS points out the how, why, who, where, when of every of the above mentioned processes and puts specific people in charge of execution and monitoring. Did i forget the cleaning and the cleaners? Ooops! 

In a food manufacturing plant, I consider the Cleaners more important than everyone else. Yes, the plant cannot run if it is not in good mechanical order but regardless of how well mechanically maintained a plant is, it cannot run unless it meets food safety requirements in terms of cleanliness. In my 14 year career in QA I have read many blueprints for QMS but only few of these have made adequate provisions and clear cut directions on cleaners and cleaning. For me, cleaning and the Cleaners that do the cleaning are an integral part of every good QMS but most times are ignored due to oversight. Many believe that cleaning does not require any special attention and that it’s just enough to have cleaners who should know what to do. This article is aimed at correcting this erroneous impression. 

Investing in your cleaning staff simply means training them on how best to do their job. Training is important as it’s absence can be catastrophic. Let me give an example of what lack of adequate training can cause. It was observed that in a particular ICU in a certain hospital a patient dies every 7:30 am. This happened for three consecutive days and threw the hospital into panic. They knew something was wrong but couldn’t find out what. A camera was discreetly installed after the third death. The camera captured a cleaner (newly employed) who enters the ICU at exactly 7:30 am (he was told to resume work promptly), unplugs the ICU machine and inserts his phone charger then starts cleaning. He plugs back the ICU 45 minutes later after cleaning and leaves the ward. A patient died the first day he reported for duty and for the next two days. This story may be fiction but it highlights the need for adequate training. Another example. Have you ever considered it important to train cleaners on how to clean toilet flush handles, toilet door handles and wash station taps? All these places mentioned carry loads of bacteria and nobody remembers to wash them. They end up transferring the or load to already washed or clean hands. 

PLEASE DEVELOP A TRAINING PROGRAM FOR YOUR CLEANERS NOW.   

After you have done the face-to-face training you also need to follow up with on-the-job training to evaluate how what was learnt is being put into practice. This follow up evaluations ensures that what was learnt is being successfully carried out in practice and where errors are observed correction follows without harm being done. Most important, cleaners need to know what ‘clean’ is. They need to know how to assess the level of cleanliness of the facility before and after they have cleaned. To describe something as clean means you can't see dirt, smell dirt or feel dirt. To achieve this, cleaning must be thorough. Going further, they also need to know why cleaning has to be thorough: to avoid contamination. Do not ever assume that they know. Explain it to them in the way they will understand. 

I do not have to emphasize on the need to provide cleaning tools. The tools required depend on the type of cleaning to be done but basically soap, detergent, mop and mop bucket (it’s not hygienic to squeeze mop with hands), gloves, nose and mouth cover, apron/overall etc. Other areas that cleaners need training on include hand washing and personal hygiene, waste handling and disposal, Good Manufacturing Practices etc. For cleaning to be effective you have to follow up cleaners and repeat instructions to them. This is why a QA leader should have good experience in food safety. A good team of cleaners should consist of stable, dynamic, conscientious food safety people who are well trained to understand the basics of cleaning methods. You can improve the quality of cleaning staff and cleaning by doing the following 

1. Develop a cleaning manual that is thorough and encompasses cGMP and proper cleaning methods of all scenarios.  

2. Have a training g program which communicates the objectives of the cleaning manual to cleaners in simple terms. 

3. Ensure that the training program is comprehensive, effective and easy to execute. 

4. Decode how many times a year training for cleaners will take place and execute it  

5. Enjoin everyone (Plant Manager, QA/QC, Production/Maintenance personnel etc.) to have a responsibility towards maintaining cleanliness of the plant 

Having done all the above, you can also establish daily or weekly meetings before cleaning operations. During these meetings, emphasize the good work of cleaners by congratulating each of them for their support and collaboration. Remember that most employees have a difficulty to put in practice good methods learned, not because they don’t want to but because old habits are hard to change. You, as the team leader, must pay attention to details in order to find out good deeds and amplify them so that others can learn. This will encourage other cleaners to work hard so they can be praised too. Develop an appraisal system for cleaners so that those who work according to instructions are rewarded with promotion or increase in salary. This will motivate others. Lastly, train your cleaners to function as the ‘security guards’ of food safety and your job will be easier.

THE ROLES OF QUALITY PROFESSIONALS IN A RECESSED ECONOMY LIKE NIGERIA

Permit me to write from a consumer goods production perspective. In contemporary Nigeria where businesses exist not to make profit but to maximize it exceedingly, QUALITY IS AN ORPHAN. Apart from some of the multinationals, who for fear of litigation in their home countries and also for the sake of integrity; and a few Nigerian companies who, overtime, have understood what quality means and have embraced it, many companies operating in Nigeria are not quality-friendly. These are companies who do not believe that the consumer is KING but dictate the standard of Quality as it suits them. 

Following the crash of oil prices which caused the cost of buying US dollar for importation to increase by more than 100% before falling slightly, the running cost of production outfits in Nigeria has risen astronomically. Majority of producers in Nigeria cannot locally source the raw materials needed to keep their machines running. They import almost 85% of their raw materials and are being forced to do this at high cost. The implications of this increase in cost of production is that profit margin has shrunk. Please ignore companies who claim profit has disappeared. If it's true they would have shut down. Because we have not fully understood what lean manufacturing is we wait for 'bad economy' to look for cost effective ways to run production operations. It is those companies who did not invest any dime into finding genuine ways of reducing costs without compromising quality that are struggling today to make ends meet. The rainy day which they failed to prepare for has come and has caught them unawares. 

For such companies the first victim of their version of cost effectiveness is QUALITY. Reduce the quantity of active ingredient by 2%, reduce the weight of the product, do not carry out in-process tests or analysis etc are some of the instructions passed down. These are considered harmless with 'good reason'. How will you know if the weight of a pack of noodle that should weigh 100gms is not up to that? If you know, how will the market woman or Okada man know? Companies compromise on quality and get away with it because of ignorance for the most part and low literacy levels. Ignorance because the literate ones who detect some of these compromises do not know where to channel their complaints to and low literacy level because one who can't read/write may have poor perception of Quality. 

Many companies have QA department just to satisfy government regulators. Such companies do not have any budget for QA which means that reagents for analysis, cGMP kits (hand gloves, face masks etc), training are not provided/carried out. The QA department exists only in name for the purpose of inspections by govt regulators (NAFDAC). What do you think will happen to such a department if company profits reduce significantly like it is happening now? Your guess is as good as mine. 

What is the role of Quality professionals in a recessed economy like Nigeria? To answer this question I will ask another question. Will you allow a product whose quality has been compromised to leave the line if you are sure such product will get to your children, father, mother or relatives? If your answer is sincerely YES then you have no role to play an you can stop reading this but if your answer is No you can read on to know the roles you have to play. As a quality professional you have a responsibility to ensure that consumers are not shortchanged in any way. These consumers who you do not know and who do not know you have absolute trust in you to protect them, the way a child has trust in the mother for breast milk. This trust must not be deliberately broken. It has become imperative to have a unified body of Quality Management professionals backed by government law/legislation to administer oath to Quality Management professionals in the same manner for doctors, pharmacists, lawyers, engineers, accountants etc. It will be a step in the right direction. As a quality professional you have a moral right to insist that the right thing is done at all times. You have to insist that standards are set and maintained at all times even in a receding economy. If you allow your company to cut corners because of 'bad economy' chances abound that even when the economy improves standards that have been lowered will not be restored. The company will enjoy its profits but hold you responsible when 'yawaa go gas' and govt regulators come calling. 

In the event that you insist the right thing is done but pressure is mounted on you to lower standards, politely ask the person mounting the pressure to instruct you in writing, sign and date it. Inform this person that upon receipt of the written instruction you will release all the batch numbers of products produced on the authority of the letter so that he/she will be held responsible in case any eventuality occurs. The person is likely to run away. This approach has worked for me all the times I have used it. 

Above all, the greatest role you have to play is what you do before a receding economy comes. Get the company you work for to establish R&D department and where it already exists ensure it becomes active. R&D, among other things, has a duty to seek ways of reducing production cost without compromising quality. It can look for cheaper variants of an expensive raw material and carry out tests to see if the cheaper variant will yield same level of quality in the product. This is one of many examples. Presently, in the name of competitiveness companies have resorted to reducing quality e.g. filling volume, weight etc so as to avoid price increase. Have you ever heard things like remove the packet, or carton, remove the label or seal etc? No. Why? Because the are tangible things that can be seen and felt. Instead companies manipulate the quality parameters that are perceived and not tangible. As a quality professional you must stand up to be taken serious. That is your role in a receding economy. 

BLOGGING:MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

 love writing. It is a hobby for me. I fell in love with pen and paper a long time ago. In fact I am so passionate about writing that I almost find it hard to comprehend anything I read if I don’t write something as I read. I used to have a boss who complained I wrote too many memos to him. He nicknamed me ‘Mr. Put It In Writing’. I wore the name like a badge. I just couldn’t stop writing. I was discussing with my Professor when I heard the word ‘blog’ for the first time. She was teaching me something in Food Microbiology which she said she read from a blog. I asked her what that was and she told me. I kinda liked it. 

Without waiting to learn the intricacies of blogging, I launched my first blog. I registered a blog on www.blogger.com but just after a month I ran out of steam. I can’t remember if I ever managed to make an single post on that blog. I had the enthusiasm and passion to blog but I didn’t have the skills I needed to blog with. I just didn’t know the rudiments of blogging. Blogging is a skill and like every other skill must be learned with patience. My first blog was a Fail (First attempt In Learning). I really learnt a lot in that first attempt. 

Sometime in 2013 I launched a news blog where I managed to make about 194 posts. Huraaaaaaay! Well, this was huge but not inspiring especially if I tell you how I got content. I used a method popularly called COPY AND PASTE. You can laugh. I am laughing too. I went to news sites, copied all sorts of things and pasted on my blog. Initially I was happy but as time passed I felt unfulfilled. I knew my blog content was not original. I knew that for me to be called a blogger I couldn’t rely on the lazy approach of copy and paste. To be called a blogger I knew I had to actually write. Because of this, I ran out of steam a second time. I failed again. This time it was a SAIL (Second Attempt In Learning) for me. 

Honestly, I wasn’t happy. I had failed. I had sailed. I knew I had to do something otherwise I wouldn’t ever be called a blogger. At this point I had to sit down to count the wares in my basket having failed twice in a venture. I didn’t W to become a failed serial blogger so it was time to study the reasons I failed twice and then draw a fresh strategy. I could not be doing things the same way and expecting different results. It wasn’t easy ọ. It was herculean for me especially because I had no one to mentor me. Most of the blogs I visited were guilty of copy and paste. I was disappointed but I didn’t give up. The student was ready and willing to learn but there was no teacher. Right? Wrong! Whenever the student is willing and ready the teacher must appear except the student is looking for the teacher in the wrong place. Change of perspective turns a stumbling block to a stepping stone. 

My teacher was with me all along but I was applying it wrongly. I was using this teacher to do copy and paste instead of asking it to teach me how to blog. She was tight in front of me but I couldn’t recognize her. You know this teacher too. Her name is Google. She taught me that to run a blog successfully I must do the following:

1. Create/Find a NICHE

For the purpose of this blog post I will define a NICHE as any position of opportunity for which one is well-suited, such as a particular market in business or a particular topic or a particular location. To find a NICHE for a blog you need to discover what you are truly good at. What you do as a job may not be what you are truly good at. Aside from have the writing skills, you also need to know what to write and write it continuously. I ran out of steam twice not because I didn’t know how to write but because I didn’t have  a NICHE and so I didn’t know what to write about. To go further, you can choose something unique as a niche. I have chosen a niche that is very technical and difficult to write about but it’s very unique and not very popular

2. Develop CONTENT

Blogging requires discipline. Before you launch a blog you must determine how often you want to post articles and stick to it. I have decided to post content on my third blog once every week. Before you launch a blog, after you have found a niche, the next step is to start developing content. Develop content for at least 10 posts before you launch the blog. This will help you a lot. As soon as you launch the blog you must keep developing content. My tactics is that I post an article every week but I write two articles in replacement. Most times peeps launch a blog, post content for a while, generate traffic of readers and then content dries up. This is called burn out. To guard against this you must endeavour to replace every article you post with two articles. A time will come when you can’t write but you will still have content to fall back on while you make time to write. 

3. Be PASSIONATE

Talent will get you to a bus stop but it is PASSION that will get you to your destination. When talent gets you to a bus stop and the bus fails to show up it is PASSION that says you either wait for the bus or trek to your destination. So you wanna blog? Without passion you can’t do much. Most people launch blogs using what they are passionate about as their NICHE. I am passionate about my profession (Quality Assurance) so I have chosen this as my NICHE. I have chosen this niche knowing it’s difficult but because I am passionate about it I will succeed. Passion gives you the zeal to continue in the face of challenges. If you are passionate about blogging you will blog. I failed twice but here I am with the third one. 

4. Have Reliable INTERNET and COMPUTER

You cannot depend on mobile phone and poor Internet connection if you are serious about blogging. You must not own a computer but at least you must have free access to one. Without a reliable Internet connection you cannot carry out basic research let alone posting content. I do not have to stress this. 

5. Direct TRAFFIC 

A blog will be effort in futility if people don’t visit to read the content. The point is that if you do not tell people about your blog they will not know it exists. After you have launched a blog you need to make deliberate attempts to invite people to visit, read and drop comments. You can reach out to your connections on Social Media and invite them to your blog. You have to see your blog as a new product that requires all the publicity it can get. If you cannot market your blog please don’t bother launching it. 

Even though I failed in my first two attempts, today I have another blog (www.qmsnnaemeka.blogspot.com). This one is less than a week old but it already has over 10 articles on it. Not just that. I also have content that can last me 3 months and I am still writing. My joy today is that I don’t do copy and paste. All the articles on my blog are original. I wrote them. This blog will do so much better than its predecessors. I know this because I have religiously followed the five steps stated above. So you wanna blog? Follow the five steps above and learn from my experience. While I was failing I was also learning so I can say I failed successfully. Fools learn from their own mistakes but wise people learn from the mistakes of others. 

If this article has been relevant to you kindly drop a comment. I will be glad. 

VALIDATION, MISTAKES, VERIFICATION: THE BEDROCK OF QUALITY MANAGEMENT

Quality Management oversees all activities and tasks needed to maintain a desired level of excellence to ensure products are fit for intended use (consumer satisfaction). It includes creating and implementing quality planning and assurance as well as quality control and improvement.

Quality Management, among other things, is basically made up of Quality Assurance, QA and Quality Control, QC, with QA having a higher pedigree on the Management scale. Quality Assurance is the process deployed towards the prevention of mistakes or defects in manufactured products, or avoiding problems when delivering solutions or services. ISO 9000 defines QA as part of Quality Management focused on providing confidence that value requirements will be fulfilled. From a layman perspective, QA can be said to be all the steps put in place before a product is produced to ensure the product will meet set specifications or standards. QA can also be termed VALIDATION but not in a strict sense. Validation is a set of procedures carried out on processes to be certain they will deliver as expected of them consistently.

QC, on the other hand, is a procedure or set of procedures intended to ensure that a manufactured product or service adheres to the specifications/standards set before production, and meet consumer/client specifications. Simply put, it’s a set of tests carried out during and/or after production to know the degree of compliance or deviation from set standards. This is what VERIFICATION is.

Going from the above, QA is prospective (planning forward) while QC is retrospective (checking backwards). While QA establishes processes, QC executes these processes. The meeting point of QA and QC is MISTAKES. QA aims to prevent mistakes whereas QC aims to detect/correct these mistakes. Everything we do in Quality Management boils down to anticipation, detection and correction of mistakes. If we have this understanding there is no way we can run away from mistakes or hide them when they occur. Mistakes are a cardinal part of Quality Management. If they are not happening then the Quality management plan needs to be reviewed as nothing is being done.

At the beginning of my career in Quality Management, I worked for a CEO who believed and still believes that one who does not make honest mistakes (there are mistakes borne out of carelessness and negligence) is not doing anything. This principle which was laid down for all staff formed the foundation of my career such that today I am not afraid to try new things or make mistakes. Honest mistakes is the key to inventions as well as a necessity to modifications. Saccharine, which is many times sweeter than sugar was discovered by mistake. Constantine Fahlberg was working on coal tar and its derivatives. On 27 February 1879, after working in his laboratory he forgot to wash his hand. He made an honest mistake. While taking his meal, he observed that everything he touched was extremely sweet. Not knowing what caused this incredible sweetness, he ran back to his laboratory and started tasting all the contents of his beakers. He was lucky he didn’t poison himself but he found the beaker that contained the sweet substance. He went ahead to make a fortune from his honest mistake. As simple as his mistake was (he forgot to wash his hands) it was enough to carve out a place in history for him.

I was not in the laboratory with Mr Fahlberg at the time but I am sure he wrote down all the steps he followed to arrive at the various derivatives of coal tar. If he didn’t do this there is no way he could have replicated the process to arrive at the sweet substance which was named Saccharine. Had he not written down all the steps he followed he would have spent a great deal trying to find out what he did to arrive at the sweet substance. He could not have benefitted from his honest mistake if he was not documenting all the steps he followed. DOCUMENTATION is vital.

If MISTAKE is the pillar that unites QA and QC then DOCUMENTATION is the mortar that binds all together ensuring none falls apart. The critical questions you should ask are

1. Are you making enough ‘honest mistakes’?
2. What are you learning from these mistakes?
3. How are you using these mistakes to inspire other ideas?
4. Are you documenting all of them?

The beginning and end of Quality Management is documentation. You cannot argue against this and win. If all the steps in a process are documented properly and afterwards mistakes are spotted, one can easily go back and trace where things actually went wrong without having to speculate. Mistakes which lead to inventions can easily be replicated this way. It is documentation that points out why a mistake was made, when it was made, the effect it had, the corrective measure adopted and its effectiveness. Without proper documentation of all the steps of a process we cannot study mistakes and so we cannot replicate the ones that lead to inventions. In fact, QA/QC has not been complete until documentation is complete. It is as simple as that.

All mistakes in manufacturing/production must be reported and studied, first with the aim to correct and prevent and if carelessness or negligence is established to train/retrain or punish, as the case may be. No matter how we choose to handle mistakes we must not rule out that mistakes create the need for training of the person who made the mistake. Punishment is good sometimes but it should not be the first thing that comes to mind when mistakes occur.

There are mistakes with little or no implications while there are those with huge implications that may even lead to shut down of operations. The mistakes with damning consequences must be tackled through Change Control Process. Change Control is a formal process used to ensure that changes to a process or system are introduced in a controlled and coordinated manner.

As QA/QC people, we must encourage the system to report mistakes as there will be no use hiding them and repeating them because of the fear of being punished. Our job is to prevent mistakes/deviations or correct them when they occur. We must not fail in that duty.

PROCESS CONTROL IN RELATION TO QUALITY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

A Quality Management system is often focused on a few key areas: CAPA to identify, correct and prevent the reoccurrence of non-conformances; auditing to ensure processes are using the quality systems effectively; and continuous improvement of the quality system itself. The system encompasses the full supply chain from your suppliers through to customers, as well as training of staff on the systems and processes. Process control is very important to the successful execution of a Quality Management System because it shifts focus from the quality of the end product to the Quality of the process producing the end product. That a particular product is good does not necessarily mean that the process that produced the product is good. This is where process control relates to quality management system.  

With respect to CAPA, when non conformances are observed in the quality of the end product, the ideal thing to do is to identify the cause of this non conformance, correct it and then adopt preventive measures to forestall a repeat of the non conformance. This can be done by thoroughly inspecting the quality attributes of the end products. Well, this is true for a process that generates only a few end products in a day. The same cannot apply to a process that generates thousands of end products per hour. For such a process, there is no way all the end products can be individually inspected for non conformance.  

Let’s look at a scenario to drive this point home. A universal packaging machine running at a speed of 35 takes less than a minute to fill 25 pouches of 70gm tomato paste. You can do the math to find out how many sachets the machine will generate in an 11 hour shift. Having done that, please imagine the possibility of inspecting all the sachets for non conformances. You can agree that it’s impossible. You cannot inspect your way out of the problem. This is because even the few sachets you inspect cannot be said to be a representative sample of the entire sachets produced. You can only use representative sampling for a process you are sure is under control.  

A process that is under control is a process that is stable. A stable process is one which has variations that are in agreement with the upper and lower control limits. To determine the stability of a process control limits must be set and then the process monitored over time and data generated. Analysis of this data determines whether the process is under control or not.  

The fact is, without evidence of process control, you have to apply 100% inspection of all the sachets in the scenario mentioned above.  This inspection-focused approach is actually a very costly method for preventative action . And it is really not preventative at all! At best, it is reactive, at least when a process is out of control. Even for a process that is in-control, it shows poor foresight, in that we could predict for the in-control process the percent of product exceeding requirements. Failing to address those issues before shipment is simply a poor quality system.  

The bottom line is that using such preventative approach increases the cost of production as more and more line inspectors have to be employed so as to achieve uniform quality in all end products. This approach will fail woefully when cost-benefit analysis is applied.  

The economic approach to preventative action is process improvement to prevent the occurrence of the nonconformance. This creates the need for a control chart to achieve process improvement, since only a control chart can differentiate between a common cause of process variation, which is built into the process, and a special cause of variation. Reacting to a common cause variation as if it were a special cause increases process variation. The point is that you cannot do meaningful process improvement without a control chart. Failing to recognize that is one of the reasons non-conformances reoccur at some organizations, and their quality department is constantly fighting fires! 

Finally, when you talk about improvements to the quality system itself, you focus on internal KPVs (key process Variables) that estimate the system responsiveness to problems. Here again, you need Process Control to differentiate between the expected common cause variation in response and the special causes, since the special causes often provide insight into the dynamics of your systems, and thus the potential for improvement. 

You cannot genuinely achieve a continuous improvement in your Quality Management System without employing Process Control. 

PROCESS CONTROL IN RELATION TO PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE

Process Control is defined as all the activities  involved in ensuring a process is predictable, stable, and consistently operating at the target level of performance with only normal variation. It is a technique which takes the guesswork out of quality control. It is a scientific, data-driven methodology for quality analysis and improvement. 

Process Control can also be defined as an industry-standard methodology for measuring and controlling quality during the manufacturing process. Quality data in the form of Product or Process measurements are obtained in real-time during manufacturing. This data is then plotted on a graph with pre-determined control limits.  

Before attempting to control a process it is necessary to understand how the process works and what it does. Once the process is well understood, operating parameters such as temperatures, pressures, flow rates, and other variables specific to the process must be identified for its control. In order to maintain a safe and hazard-free facility, variables that may cause safety concerns must be identified and may require additional control. It is important to identify the measurables that correspond with the operating parameters in order to control the process. Measurables for process systems include: temperature, pressure, Flow rate, pH, Humidity, Level, Concentration, Viscosity, Conductivity, Turbidity, Redox/potential, Electrical behavior, Flammability.  

Once the measurables are identified, it is equally important to locate where they will be measured so that the system can be accurately controlled. Selecting the proper type of measurement device specific to the process will ensure that the most accurate, stable, and cost-effective method is chosen. There are several different signal types that can detect different things. These signal types include: Electric, Pneumatic, Light, Radio waves, Infrared (IR) etc.  

In order to control the operating parameters, the proper control method is vital to control the process effectively. On/off is one control method and the other is continuous control. Continuous control involves Proportional (P), Integral (I), and Derivative (D) methods or some combination of those three. Choosing between a local or distributed control system that fits well with the process affects both the cost and efficacy of the overall control. Understanding the operating parameters allows the ability to define the limits of the measurable parameters in the control system. Choosing between feed-forward, feed-backward, cascade, ratio, or other control logic is a necessary decision based on the specific design and safety parameters of the system. Even the best control system will have failure points; therefore it is important as well to design a redundancy system to avoid catastrophic failures by having back-up controls in place. Fail-safes allow a system to return to a safe state after a breakdown of the control. This fail-safe allows the process to avoid hazardous conditions that may otherwise occur. 

Depending on the control logic used in the process, there may be lag times associated with the measurement of the operating parameters. Setting lead/lag times compensates for this effect and allows for accurate control. By investigating changes made by implementing the control system, unforeseen problems can be identified and corrected before they create hazardous conditions in the facility. The proper integration of a new control system with existing process systems avoids conflicts between multiple systems. 

Control limits are determined by the capability of the process, whereas specification limits are determined by the client's needs. Data that falls within the control limits indicates that all equipment in the system are operating as expected. Any variation within the control limits is likely due to a common cause—the natural variation that is expected as part of the process. If data falls outside of the control limits, this indicates that an assignable cause is likely the source of the product variation, and something within the process should be changed to fix the issue before defects occur. This is where maintenance comes in.  

In general, the term maintenance is described as any activity – such as tests, measurements, replacements, adjustments and repairs — intended to retain or restore a functional unit in or to a specified state in which the unit can perform its required functions. It involves fixing any sort of mechanical, plumbing or  electrical device should it become out of order or broken (known as repair, unscheduled, or casualty maintenance). It also includes performing routine actions which keep the device in working order (known as scheduled maintenance) or prevent trouble from arising (preventive maintenance).  

Having read all the above, you can agree with me that process control cannot be overemphasized when it comes to maintenance. Because prevention will always be better than cure, maintenance must rely on variables generated by process control mechanisms in order to accurately predict when a system failure is most likely to occur. Generation of data by process control has to be followed up with diligent analysis of such data. If this is not done then the whole aim of process control had been defeated as data should not be generated and stored without analysis.  

Every manufacturing facility has to have an Equipment Maintenance Plan, EMP, which has a bedrock on process control. The smooth running of the operations of such a facility will depend on how good the EMP is. QA personnel, Production personnel including supervisors and machine operators are to be trained adequately on process control. They need to know what to monitor, when to monitor and how often. There must be appropriate documentation in writing or in electronic form to support such monitoring otherwise nothing has been done.  

Generally speaking, there are four types of maintenance in use: 

Preventive maintenance, where equipment is maintained before break down occurs. 

Operational maintenance, where equipment is maintained in use 

Corrective maintenance, where equipment is maintained after break down. This maintenance is often most expensive because worn equipment can damage other parts and cause multiple damages. 

Adaptive maintenance, where equipment is maintained by letting it adapt to new environment. 

Process Control best suits preventive maintenance. Preventive maintenance (PM) has the following meanings: 

The care and servicing by personnel for the purpose of maintaining equipment and facilities in satisfactory operating condition by providing for systematic inspection, detection, and correction of incipient failures either before they occur or before they develop into major defects. 

According to Bamiro, Nzediegwu, Oladejo, Rahaman and Adebayo (2011) , preventive maintenance is the work carried out on equipment in order to avoid its breakdown or malfunction. It is a regular and routine action taken on equipment in order to prevent its breakdown.  

BENEFITS OF PROCESS CONTROL TO MAINTENANCE  

1. Preventive maintenance reduces cost of maintenance and enhances productivity which is affected if process control is not done and equipment are allowed to break down 

2. Process Control gives room for adequate planning of production activities  

3. It allows for proper Inventory of equipment spares to be kept and prevent the stocking of unnecessary spares which tie finances down 

4. It makes employees up and doing as they know their work will be monitored and the data they generate properly analyzed  

5. It improves safety of operations