Life 101: I think I might stencil DMAIC on my walls.

So I read this for work today, because when the words Poka Yoke appear on a resume you just have'ta look.

Poka-yoke (ポカヨケ^?) (IPA: [poka joke]) is a Japanese term that means "fail-safing" or "mistake-proofing". A poka-yoke is any mechanism in a Lean manufacturing process that helps an equipment operator avoid (yokeru) mistakes (poka). Its purpose is to eliminate product defects by preventing, correcting, or drawing attention to human errors as they occur.^[1] The concept was formalised, and the term adopted, by Shigeo Shingo as part of the Toyota Production System.^[2][3] It was originally described as baka-yoke, but as this means "fool-proofing" (or "idiot-proofing") the name was changed to the milder poka-yoke.

More broadly, the term can refer to any behavior-shaping constraint designed into a product to prevent incorrect operation by the user.^{[citation needed]}

Implementation in products

Examples of poka-yoke in consumer products include:

• Automatic transmissions: the inability to remove a car key from the ignition switch of an automobile if the automatic transmission is not first put in the "Park" position, so that the driver cannot leave the car in an unsafe parking condition where the wheels are not locked against movement. (This is an example of trapped key interlocking).

• 3.5" floppy disks: the top-right corner is shaped in a certain way so that the disk cannot be inserted upside-down.

• High-security padlocks: it is impossible to remove the key from some high-security padlocks unless the shackle on the padlock is closed. Only by locking the padlock can the key be removed. Security mistakes/accidents are therefore much less likely to occur, particularly where the padlock key is kept on a chain attached to someone's belt. This is because the design ensures that a key cannot easily be left in an unlocked padlock, or a padlock left unlocked after opening it, or not fully closing the shackle of a padlock. Each of these three scenarios would be dangerous in high-security scenarios such as military installations, armories, prisons or bonded warehouses. In contrast, most standard-security padlocks do allow a key to be removed from a padlock, regardless of whether the shackle is closed or not.

• Microwave ovens: a door switch automatically disconnects the activation button when the door of the oven is opened. As a result, it is impossible to cook anything in a microwave oven unless the door (which contains a Faraday cage to block microwaves) is fully closed. If it were possible to activate an oven with the door open, this would allow dangerous leakage of high intensity microwave radiation, which would be very harmful to any living creatures in the immediate area.

• SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) cards: The SIM card used in cellular phones has its upper left corner trimmed diagonally to guide the card correctly into position.

Then I thought... yes, we should idiot-proof. I kept reading... I came to this...

DMAIC

The five phases in the DMAIC project methodology are:

• Define high-level project goals and the current process.
• Measure key aspects of the current process and collect relevant data.
• Analyze the data to verify cause-and-effect relationships. Determine what the relationships are, and attempt to ensure that all factors have been considered.
• Improve or optimize the process based upon data analysis using techniques like Design of experiments.
• Control to ensure that any deviations from target are corrected before they result in defects. Set up pilot runs to establish process capability, move on to production, set up control mechanisms and continuously monitor the process.

Well, DUH... who wants to be the first to tell me that this can't be all it takes.