Friday, April 16, 2004

Mistake Proofing


There’s an Exit sign almost everywhere here. Restaurants, government buildings, residential buildings, supermarkets, convenient stores, cafes, plants, etc. There’s also one above the door in a downtown’s Tim Horton's. Every time I’m there, I see people mistaking that door with another door, going to the above floors, which is a business building and of course is closed on that time of the day. (usually a weekday or weekend evening)
The idea behind using such a sign is mistake proofing. This term which is called Poke-Yoke in Japanese, represents providing an intervention device or procedure to catch the mistake before it translated to non-conforming product.
This one, in Tim Horton's cafe seems not working. I’ll study more about this topic to find out the possible reasons of failure of usage of such a devise and will present it here.
(Photo: This picture taken from the sign on the top of one Downtown Calgary's Tim Horton's is added in Aug.17.10!)

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