(EN) The Eight Disciplines Problem Solving (8D)—D2 and D3

In this series of posts I go through the Eight Disciplines Problem Solving (8D) in more detail. In my last post, I talked about D0: Preparation and Emergency Response Actions and D1: Establish a Team. In this post I will go into more detail of D2: Describe the Problem and D3: Develop Interim Containment Plan. (Now you can probably guess what my next post will be all about too). Read on!

Recap: Eight Disciplines Problem Solving

Just for reference, here are the eight (nine) steps of the Eight Disciplines Problem Solving (8D).

• D0: Preparation and Emergency Response Actions
• D1: Establish a Team
• D2: Describe the Problem
• D3: Develop Interim Containment Plan
• D4: Root Cause Analysis and Escape Points
• D5: Develop Permanent Solution
• D6: Implement Permanent Solution
• D7: Prevent Recurrence
• D8: Close Problem and Recognize Contributors

D2: Describe the Problem

The next discipline is the description of the problem. Similar to the Toyota Practical Problem Solving, this is also already a deep dive into the available data and knowledge to further understand. The overall goal is to provide a Clear, Concise, and Quantifiable Problem Description. Rather than vague hand waving, you want to have a quantitative understanding of the problem. It is okay to start out with a vague description (e.g., „quality is down“), but this discipline D2 should try to clarify and quantify this in more detail. Such a quantification can be either missing a target (e.g., acceptable defect rate vs. current defect rate) or deviations from a standard (it should be done this way but is done that way—but do keep in mind that the standard could also be wrong). Overall, data analysis and visual representation of this data is a key part of this discipline D2. Make timelines, create Pareto diagrams, look at scatter plots, draw pie charts, anything that can help you to understand the problem.

Based on this, you dig deeper and try to understand more about the problem. A proper problem analysis will later on help you to also understand the root cause. There are numerous tools available to help you with this. You should look at the problem from all kinds of directions, supported by data. One popular tool isthe 5W1H or sometimes 5W2H, standing for different questions starting with „W“ or „H.“ These are as follows:

• Who: Who is involved or affected by the problem?
• What: What exactly is the problem? (e.g., „Product A is failing,“ „Process B is producing defects.“ Quantify!)
• Where: Where does the problem occur? (e.g., specific location, machine, process step)
• When: When does the problem occur? (e.g., time of day, shift, during specific operations) Is there a pattern or trend?
• Why: Why is this a problem? (This refers to the impact, not the root cause yet.)
• How: How is the problem happening? (This describes the observed deviation from the normal state.)
• How Many/Much: Quantify the problem (e.g., defect rate, number of customer complaints, cost of scrap).

See also my blog post Asking What—When—Where—Why—Who—How… and Then Some… for the Toyota Practical Problem Solving. While this blog post looks at the tool from the viewpoint of the Toyota Practical Problem Solving, the tool (and additional tools below) are equally valid here. Other possible tools are the fish bone diagram, using the structure Man, Machine, Material, Method, … or similar, albeit we will see the fish bone diagram again in discipline D4: Root Cause Analysis and Escape Points. See also my blog post Asking Man—Machine—Material—Method… and Then Some… for the Toyota Practical Problem Solving for more detail.

Not always helpful but sometimes used are value stream maps to analyze the flow of material and information, or failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) to estimate the magnitude of the problem. Sometimes, a stakeholder analysis is also done to understand who is affected by the problem, albeit if your team was set up well in discipline D1 Establish a Team, most stakeholders should be already on board (i.e., on the team)

What is always useful is, if possible, to go to the shop floor, or generally go to the gemba, to look at the problem on site. Seeing the situation in reality will give you a completely different side of the situation and much additional information than mere data can do. Once you truly understood the problem, you can move on to the next discipline.

D3: Develop Interim Containment Plan

The discipline D3: Develop Interim Containment Plan is sort of a quick fix. Some 8D structures even call this a temporary fix. The goal is to stop the problem from continuing (i.e., to stop the bleeding), to buy you time and reduce quality cost in the meantime for the proper fix, and to project confidence (and competence!) to the customer.

At a first glance, this D3 looks very similar to the Emergency Response Actions in discipline D0: Preparation and Emergency Response Actions. While they both go in the same direction, the goal is slightly different. The Emergency Response Actions aim to prevent death and serious damage to your customer, possibly at quite some expense in order to prevent an even bigger expense. For example, in aviation, grounding all planes of one type due to an unknown flaw is rather expensive… but still cheaper than a plane full of passengers and crew dropping out of the sky. It prevents the worst damage, with little regard for cost.

In comparison, the quick fix of this discipline D3 would try to get the planes going again, using solutions that are hopefully cheaper than grounding all planes, but may still be too expensive in the long run and hence not sustainable. For example, one company I know suddenly had a recurring quality problem of a crucial glued connection failing too often. The quick fix was to test rigorously and throw out all questionable products. Doing this in the long run would have hurt seriously profitability, but in the short term throwing money at the problem prevented customer lawsuits and bought the company time to figure out a long term solution that is sustainable.

For another example from medicine, assume a patient arrives in the ER with internal bleeding, falling blood pressure, and losing consciousness. The emergency response would be to hook him up to IV fluids, blood plasma, and e.g. a ventilator… you know, so he does not die. The quick fix would be surgery to stop the bleeding. The long-term solution (disciplines D5: Develop Permanent Solution and D6: Implement Permanent Solution) would be to figure out why he bled in the first place (e.g., cancer or poisoning) and then try to address these root causes of the problem. But first, make sure your customer does not die!

Or for another example, you have a water leak. Your emergency response is to put a bucket underneath it and maybe turn off the water. The quick fix by the plumber is to turn off the water to the affected pipes so you can use your other plumbing. For the permanent fix, the plumber will replace the damaged section of the pipe.

The goal is here to identify possible actions to contain the problem. Any kind of creativity technique like mind maps, brainstorming, and many more can help you here. If you have multiple ideas, prioritize and select suitable approaches. While speed is important here, you still need to verify whether the quick fix works, and communicate it to the necessary stakeholders.

Possible ideas could include 100% inspection rates for this problem, repairing existing products (e.g., a recall), changing a process to a higher quality process or material (even if it is more expensive), etc.

Discipline D3 is still about crisis management, and it is a temporary fix! Once you have analyzed the root cause, developed a permanent countermeasure, and implemented it, you probably will reduce or eliminate the additional efforts from this discipline again to save money and time. After all, if the problem is fixed permanently, you no longer need a quick fix. But more about this in my next post on D4: Root Cause Analysis and Escape Points. Now go out, use a quick fix until you have a permanent one, and organize your industry!