One Point Lesson (OPL) with example and its applicability

#onepointlesson

Hi Friends and quality aspirants ! 

Here today I have come back with one more topic that is OPL ,One point Lesson. As usual I try to keep off  typical definitions of terms or typical jargon  and try to explain it in very very simple language, so that a novice /beginner in this Quality department can easily get this very important and useful quality tool.

So basically what is One Point Lesson and Where to use it ?

                                                                           

     

                     (photo credit :iStock)     

OPL is a way or means to communicate/educate the working team for :- 

  1> Basic things related to any process / machine / work environment.

  2> Safety precautions while on work and off work but within the campus of organisation.

  3> Improvement in any process or way of doing daily job.

  4> Last but not least lesson learnt by finding root cause of any detected quality problem.

OPL can be be used at any place or organisation where there is a team work /job work / daily activities involving more peoples.

One Point Lesson means more pictures/photos/images than written information

OPL Should be prepared with clear images/photos/picture/sketches showing correct way and incorrect way of doing an activity.  Images or pictures should depict the subject itself vividly. While preparing OPL one should bear in mind one has  to keep written subject information as minimum as possible. It is better if you can write needed image supportive information in one or two lines. OPL Should be simple one. No special skill or higher knowledge is needed to understand OPL. 

OPL Format :-

As shown below , OPL consists of three components. 

 

Component .1 -- OPL Details 

In OPL details you have to give OPL date, means when it was created. Then you have to mention OPL theme, objective means what do you want to achieve with this OPL. After that you have to give type of OPL.

Component. 2 --- OPL Subject 

Here you will give images/photos/sketches to show correct and incorrect way of carrying out operation or process itself. If image needs some descriptive text sentence , you may add it .But remember to avoid difficult phrases or terms and also do not indulge in lengthy description.  

Component. 3 --- Training Record

So you have created OPL. But at that time, initially being creator of OPL ,you have to explain it to QA person. Record your and QA person name in the training record list. QA person in turn will train it to inspector  and inspector to operators and chain goes on.......All these training should be entered in training record. Many a times a separate page is provided for training record, especially if number of trainers or operators are more or organisation is of size medium to big.

OPL is a One point Only at a time

So when creating One Point Lesson, only one point must be there. Do not mention any another point or make reference of it. You have to study only one point througly only. You have to have separate OPL for another problem. 

NOW LETS GO STRAIGHWAY TO OPL EXAMPLE ...This OPL is created by me and now it is a company document. Some changes are made for publication purpose.

                                                       OPL Practical Example 

(Images , photos taken by me, the author of this blog. This one point lesson was devloped by me for 'Omkar Enterprises' MIDC, Ahmednagar)

In above example one can see there is setting ring and a dial bore gauge on a surface table at inspection area. 

Setting ring and dial bore gauge both are calibrated one. There were 6 operators and 2 inspectors making use of dial bore gauge at different shifts. After setting dial bore gauge, ID of machined hole was measured with the help of that dial bore gauge. I noticed that each operator and inspector used to make setting of dial bore gauge by placing it any unspecified point inside setting ring. There used to difference of 4 to 10 microns of each reading every time by different operators. That variations can be easily attributed to Gage R & R, but that was not the case because of very close limit of customer tolerance. Only plus / minus 5 microns tolerance was accepted. Although setting ring was calibrated one, keeping dial bore gauge at 3 different locations was giving different results , but within tolerance limits. As the reading of ID of hole was sometimes coming very very close to tolerance limits, there was a possibility, it may run out of tolerance limits by just a fraction. So we decided to adopt a standard way of setting dial bore gauge. We made marking on Setting Ring at a proper tolerance point. You can see that white marking on the setting ring. Now I had to communicate it to all operators. So after making OPL, I trained QA inspector who in trained operators.

The end result of this OPL is now everyone who sets dial bore gauge place it at position marked at setting ring. Standardisation in setting and thereby inspection method has been achieved now.

This is sufficient , I think for today's session.. I can add more lines or more example. as time permits. Till than , your any query is welcome. Thanks.