How much human error is acceptable?

Hi. I've come to this forum for automotive quality because I'm sure human error is a huge topic in the automotive industry, but I don't have anyone to directly ask. I can't imagine that auto manufacturers feel that even a single tire falling off of a car, and a family being killed is acceptable, so my question is how do manufacturers ensure that things like this don't happen? I guess the same question could be asked of the airline industry, and planes crashing.

I have a customer that manufactures medical devices. I once saw a board posted that said they had a quality goal of 80%. They were in the 90's, and were proud of this. My first thought though was why are they happy that 20% of their products are defective?

I understand that people make mistakes, but at my company our goals are 0 % mistakes. Every mistake could result in someone dying. Am I asking too much of my employees? I tell them that time is not an issue, and to take as much time as is needed to do the steps to perfection, but mistakes are still made.

So should I just accept a certain level of mistakes because, hey, we're all human? Am I wrong to expect 100 % accountability in my employees, given that they are being paid hourly, and I've told them to only go as fast as they can go and make no mistakes?

 

Welcome to the site @Briansams . Not sure of your actual question or intent. However, the following truths exist...

1- Humans are fallible (firing/replacing a human, simply gets you another human).
2- "Human error" is never an acceptable root cause (see #1)

Be well

 

You also have to realize that the customer knows you will make bad parts. It's literally inevitable BUT your job as the supplier is to make sure those bad parts don't make it to the customer. (i.e. scrap identification/containment)

 

EXACTLY what @Bev D said.

 

All errors/defects aren’t the same. This is where risk analysis comes in.

 

it is agreeable that humans do error and if it is possible make process human free but we should not deny the fact that the process is also being made by humans, up to to how much extent you can stop human errors