Let’s face it, nobody’s perfect. We all make mistakes. But how
many of us truly treat these as an opportunity to learn and improve? Surprisingly,
in the publishing industry at least it seems, not many.
Thomson Scientific has for many years had in place procedures to train our
patent editors and indexers and monitor the quality of their output. For an
Analyst-in-training, it can be up to six months before they can be unleashed
to work on adding value to the raw patents information supplied by the patent
offices. Quality checking of intellectual content has always been in place,
but this is necessarily subjective. Now however, for the first time, objective
and systematic procedures to track errors, analyze how these arise and implement
changes to processes in order to reduce and eventually eliminate those errors
have been introduced. The catalyst to this change has been the Pegasus editorial
production system which was introduced to the patents editorial process during
2004 and is now in daily use around the organization to streamline the addition
of intellectual content to our patent records.
As each shipment of data is compiled for distribution via online, CD-ROM or
individual customer feeds, the methods of the 6-sigma quality process are applied
to validate and, more importantly, improve the production processes used to
create product. Specifically, the DMAIC technique (define, measure, analyze,
improve, control) borrowed from the 6-Sigma methodology is being applied by
the Quality Team within the Thomson Scientific Production Planning and Control
department. A series of systematic quality checks is used to establish the error
rate of the update and identify any deviation from normal. For abnormal deviations,
analysis is undertaken to establish the cause of these and the consequent learning
used to continuously improve the production processes.
The production process we use may not be perfect, but thanks to the efforts
of the Quality team, and in the words of The Beatles song, it’s getting
better all the time.
Thanks to Andy MacIntyre, Quality Team Leader and Tony Massey, Director
of Production Planning and Control for background information.
