Retire the Verify Button

My post “Add a Verify Button” has a problem. When Rohit requested hyperlocal news for every PIN code in Mumbai, we’d need a “verify” button on every Statoistics card - hundreds of PIN codes, every day. Verifying every output introduces new bottleneck: a person inspecting every unit. That’s 100% inspection - which you do when you don’t yet trust the process. Manufacturing solved this a century ago. At Western Electric’s Hawthorne Works (famous for the Hawthorne Effect), quality control meant inspecting finished products and pulling the defective ones. Walter Shewhart sent his boss a one-page memo; about a third of it was a control chart. Deming turned this approach into his third point: “Stop relying on inspection for quality.” Build quality in from the start instead of inspecting defects out at the end. His process tells us what to do with a verify button as volume climbs. Measure how often it’s right. Don’t retire inspection until you know your defect rate. For example, on one…