‘Poka Yoke’ is a technique for eliminating errors, used by Black Belts for solution generation and preparing implementation;
such that it is …Impossible to make mistakes, …Inexpensive, …Very effective, …Based on simplicity and ingenuity.
“poka” means an inadvertent mistake, “yoke” means to prevent, it originates by mr. Shigeo Shingo (1909-1990) in Japan.
Error proofing is a very simple technique.
You should keep it in mind at all times, but particularly when you are designing the solution or the improvement
Ideally you should prevent all possibility of the problem occurring, elmination;
If you can’t do this, you should then try to
- flag (identify quickly, every time the problem occurs),
- facilitate (make it difficult to create the problem)
- mitigate (reduce the effects when the problem does occur)
…in that order!