POKA-YOKE

Poka-Yoke is fool proofing, which is the basis of the Zero Quality Control (ZQC) approach, which is a technique for avoiding and eliminating mistakes. Generally this technique is used in manufacturing process but has much wider uses, such as; offices - order and invoice processing, hospitals - drug dispensing, aircraft maintenance - particularly with processes having the potential of inducing catastrophic in-service failures. Dr. Shingo wrote the book "Zero Quality Control: Source Inspection and the Poka-yoke system" in 1986. This original source material defined the basic approach. However, the technique has been extensively developed since. Dr. Shingo also suggests that statistical process Poka-Yoke is fool proofing, which is the basis of the Zero Quality Control (ZQC) approach, which is a technique for avoiding and eliminating mistakes. Generally this technique is used in manufacturing process but has much wider uses, such as; offices - order and invoice processing, hospitals - drug dispensing, aircraft maintenance - particularly with processes having the potential of inducing catastrophic in-service failures.

The term Poka-Yoke is Japanese and can roughly be translated as mistake or fool proofing. It is derived from ‘Poka’ - inadvertent mistake and ‘yoke’ - avoid. Of course, the concept of fool proofing processes and mechanical devises has been around for many years (e.g. see photographs of floppy disk drive and electrical plugs) but is was the Japanese Matsushita Industrial Engineer Dr. Shigeo Shingo who was probably most prominent and influential in developing it into a technique