I Have to agree with Simon, if you can control the workers by enhancing the work experience through training and good man management then the human error element minimises. The biggest problem from a Technical managers view is to make operational staff (particularly management) understand that technical people are working within the company to achieve the same objective as them i.e. to produce good quality, safe and legal products and to make the company (those who pay your wages) money.
You have to adapt a tactical approach when making technical decisions in fast moving production companies if ever there is a quality decision to be made, the first question I ask myself before I make a decision is "Am I likely to kill anyone with this product?" quickly followed by "Is it legal?" then a multitude of other questions related to amount produced, where it all is, how much will it cost to re-call\re-work, what impact on the company name could this have etc. etc. but it all boils down to if it compromises legal requirements or food safety then it absolutely must be stopped and all product dealt with. If it is a minor issue i.e. slight varience in colour\aroma - providing you agree it with the customer then you can explain the decision to your co-workers, rectify the problem and identify the cause, if the cause is human error do not jump all over the person or allow their supervisor\manager to do this because the person who's fault it is will be petrified they will lose their job and will already have adopted a defensive state of mind i.e. denial denial, denial. The best approach is to speak to the person directly try and find out why or how it happened then explain the problems it could potentially have caused and the actions that have been taken. It may well be this person has never in their life had their role truly defined to them and by making them realise just how important certain aspects of their job are they will hopefully be more dilligent in the future.
At the moment I am Technical Manager of a small production unit but I know every worker by name and can hold conversations with all of them and in the past when working in massive production units even though I possibly did not know the persons name I still talked to the staff and encouraged them to talk to me which allowed me the opportunity to find out to what level they had been trained and how well they understood their roles, which in turn allowed me to schedule and agree with production training times and courses for certain staff.
