Originally Posted by
2wobbly
American definition of 'poka-yoke': snitching
I hadn't heard that. Looking online, that seems to refer to a process that "alerts" the operator of the error, like that "TOP" label in the example pictured.
To me, a GOOD poke-yoke is one that prevents it being assembled wrong, and only allows it being assembled correctly.
Early in my career, I designed something for a customer, to their requirements, that had right-hand and left-hand assemblies. The biggest part that was handed, had two holes in each part. One hole was a drain hole that was offset in the handed direction, and needed to be in a place, such that it could be misassembled, but off in rotation. The other hole was for locating the part in the weld fixture, and I designed that so mismatch was impossible, poka-yoke. And I put on the part and assembly drawings a warning in all caps about each hole, "DRAIN HOLE ONLY! DO NOT USE FOR ASSEMBLY LOCATION!", and the other hole, "LOCATION HOLE FOR ASSEMBLY". And each part was stamped R or L. One day I get a call from production, can those parts be mismatched? How important is it? Me: "Why." "Because we welded up a bunch with the parts mismatched." Me: "If it didn't need to be that way, the customer would not have requested it to be that way, because it adds cost. There will be an interference problem." They had to scrap a bunch of parts. Me, I was naive in thinking that the fixture maker and production engineers would follow the drawing, but no, they went rogue, because locating it off the drain hole made for a faster changeover between Right and Left assemblies. I should have personally inspected the fixture design early, but back then, we were taught to "stay in our lane", and I was "Design", at a different location 5 hours away. Subsequently, I never assumed production manufacturing would get it right, I always personally inspected all the tooling.