Gemba visits illuminate good design

On our way home from dinner last night, our street was blocked by a street lamp that had toppled just 10 minutes before. The pole had literally sheered at the base. Last fall, all our street lamps had their lighting elements replaced with solid state LED units – same metal pole but with a new and larger head.

The firemen who arrived to move it were surprised there wasn't a car that struck it because they had never seen this happen on its own before. One thought that maybe the weight and length of the lighting head were too great for a metal utility pole designed for a mercury vapor lamp.

This is what QFD's customer gemba visit is designed to capture. The city utility company may never has specified that the new LED lamp assemblies have the weight, length, aerodynamic shape, and other characteristics that would work with the existing metal utility poles. But I think had designers of the lamp assembly been on site and see the existing poles to be retrofitted, the physical properties might have been different. Instead, a safety hazard was created.

Customers don't know always specify their requirements completely. Engineers that see the application and its environment (or use case) can discover these unspoken needs and design a significantly better product.