-- A Visit to the Factory of TFC COMMUNICATION Co., Ltd.    

   On December 15, 2010, news from Suzhou reported by Fiber Home Online. Last Friday, invited by Ms. Ou Yang, the deputy general manager of TFC COMMUNICATION Co., Ltd., Fiber Home Online had the honor to visit the factory of TFC. The factory's outstanding concept of strictly pursuing quality impressed us a great deal, which also triggered our thoughts on enterprise management, especially in aspects such as enterprise production, quality management and employee motivation.

Full Participation and Pooling of Wisdom and Efforts    TFC COMMUNICATION Co., Ltd. in Suzhou fully integrates the requirements of the quality management system with the company's existing rules, regulations and systems, avoiding multi-headed management or repetitive regulations for the same matter. The corresponding quality requirements are incorporated into the job responsibilities, and the quality objectives are included in the performance assessment.    At the same time, in order to develop and encourage employees' opinions and suggestions on the work process, a corresponding reward system is established. Once a suggestion is adopted, the employee will receive a corresponding reward and be publicly praised. Suggestions can range from improving the technological process to how to save water, energy and protect the environment in daily life. Letting employees taste the benefits of improvement in various tasks becomes a source of motivation to stimulate their initiative and self-consciousness.

The Process Determines the Outcome: Employee Self-inspection and Mutual Inspection    After visiting the factory of TFC, one feeling that struck the author is that "product quality is manufactured and produced, not achieved through strict inspection." Many enterprises only care about the outcome and ignore the process. In terms of quality management, they only ensure that there are no quality problems in their own process. However, in the factory of TFC, we can see that all processes need to go through three inspection processes: self-inspection, mutual inspection and random inspection.    TFC requires each employee to conduct self-inspection on the products they produce. Only when the products are considered qualified can they be passed on to the next process. If unqualified products are found during self-inspection, they should be properly marked and placed separately.    For the products passed on from the previous process or workshop, employees also need to conduct inspection again. Only when the products are considered qualified can production proceed, ensuring that each process undergoes strict quality inspection, reducing the defect rate as much as possible and improving work efficiency. We can't help but sigh at the convenience of automation. Since it is currently impossible to automate every process, the demand for manual labor in the manufacturing/production of such precision components far exceeds our imagination.    However, just self-inspection and mutual inspection are not enough. Managers or full-time inspectors (random inspectors) also need to conduct regular spot checks, inspect the semi-finished products on the assembly line, and check whether the employees' operation methods, gestures and quality are strictly correct. If problems are found, they should be corrected in a timely manner. Discovering problems early can avoid a large number of unqualified products, enhance employees' quality awareness and improve production efficiency, so as to provide customers with products of high cost performance, high reliability and high precision.

Working with a Qualification Certificate    In the production workshop of TFC, we can see the "Learning Corner" everywhere. Various new technological processes, new product specifications, samples of unqualified products, etc. are posted here and are updated and improved irregularly. This enables employees to understand the latest customer needs through continuous learning and constantly reminds employees to maintain and improve the product qualification rate.    General Manager Ou told us that all employees need to receive both "classroom-style" training and "practical operation" training every six months and need to pass strict assessment and certification. Only after obtaining the corresponding qualification certificate can they participate in actual work. Of course, employees are also encouraged to have multiple qualification certificates to provide more "flexibility" in production. In the production workshop of TFC, it is even popular to recognize the certificate rather than the person.    Product quality is the lifeblood of an enterprise and an objective basis for customers to judge whether they are satisfied with our work, service and attitude. Through various incentives, inspections and certifications, TFC ensures that product quality is controlled, proactively prevents problems, continuously discovers and improves the process during production, and reduces unqualified products as much as possible. The quality control of TFC tells us that quality management requires full participation, pooling of wisdom and efforts, problem discovery, finding the root cause and thorough solution. In the author's opinion, the management of any efficient and healthy enterprise should also follow such a process.