Dell Hell Ireland (and other flavours) on Google

So for shits and giggles I decided to google Dell Hell and Ireland. (The wife is out for the night, I’m bored, it seemed like a good idea at the time).

http://www.google.ie/search?sourceid=navclient&hl=en-GB&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGLF_en-GBIE226IE228&q=dell+hell+ireland

To increase the sample size, I removed the reference to “Ireland” and instead googled for “Dell Hell Information Quality”… frack me, there I am again – the top 2 (tonight, 27 July 07).

http://www.google.ie/search?sourceid=navclient&hl=en-GB&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGLF_en-GBIE226IE228&q=dell+hell+information+quality

So to be fair to Dell I removed the reference to “hell” to see how the DoBlog might fare with the Great Search Algorithm in the sky. This was a ‘positive control’. Wasn’t I pleasantly surprised when I was again the top 2 listed links on this day…

http://www.google.ie/search?sourceid=navclient&hl=en-GB&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGLF_en-GBIE226IE228&q=dell+information+quality

Not yet in Damien Mulley/SkyHandling Partners/”the server cannae take it Captain, she’s goin’ te blow” territory one can always dream…

I googled a few other combinations… for “Dell quality Information” I was results 3 and 4 out of 16,800,000. That was a very neutral query. Still other combinations were picked but I can’t be bothered typing them … the screenshots below will show you the story.

What I learned is that I am missing a very important tag from these posts… “Dell Quality”. That will be fixed tonight.

Also by googling for Dell Quality and Ireland I found this pdf of a Dell presentation. I was interested to read this quote from Michael Hammer (Business Process Re-engineering guru) towards the end of the slides… I’ve highlighted a few words that leapt out at me.

“ The 21st Century Belongs to the
Process Organization Centered on
Customers and…Operates With
High Quality, Enormous Flexibility,
Low Cost, and Extraordinary Speed.”

With regards to my broken keyboard Dell are hitting the marks on this one. Quickly dealt with, within the agreed time period – the failure of the delivery is down to me… (sorry Dell, I’ll sort it out as soon as I can).

My Graphics card issue however is a result of a failed process (assembly) as a result of poor quality information (either the assembler didn’t know to put in a 256mb card or couldn’t tell a 128mb card from a 256mb card) which has dragged on now for five months (which is extraordinary speed, just not in a good way). The fact that the issue still isn’t resolved and I’ve got a second ‘Customer Advocate’ from Round Rock Texas on the case now is indicative of how wide of their goals Dell are.

(A big shout out to Rick and John… hope you guys are reading this as you reached out and I believe you have done your best to help with my situation. Elizabeth in Dublin… if you are back in the office could you PLEASE respond to the last few emails I’ve sent you as they are quite important… the email address you gave for the person who was covering for you kept bouncing back.)

Joseph Juran, the Quality Management guru put it very well:

“They thought they could make the right speeches, establish broad goals, and leave everything else to subordinates… They didn’t realize that fixing quality meant fixing whole companies, a task that cannot be delegated.”

Joseph M. Juran, “Made in the USA: A Renaissance in Quality”, Harvard Business Review, July 1, 1993

Deming’s Point 10 tells us “Eliminate slogans, exhortations and numerical targets for the workforce since they are divisory. The difficulties belong to the whole system”.

Firefighting does not improve quality, especially when the fire is let smoulder on for nearly half a year (and a whole new product launch).

I have others but I can’t be bothered to put them up… I think my point is made.

Perhaps Dell should consider getting in contact with the knowledgable practitioners in the International Association for Information and Data Quality (www.iaidq.org) who might be able to share some pointers on how to address the root causes of this problem.