IT’S counter-intuitive to some people. If there are no quality checkers, how do we ensure zero-defect products and excellent services for customers? A wrong answer was given by one factory that proudly displays a tarpaulin banner that says “Quality Starts Here” with an arrow directed to the work stations of 20 minimum-wage earners doing visual inspections of products before its delivery to customers.

Many people and organizations have the wrong impression that defects should be done by people at the end of the line. But isn’t it useless to do such impossible, gargantuan task? Imagine manually checking hundreds of thousands of items performed by hundreds of workers every day. At times, even electronic sensors could fail.