Say the posted limit is 65mph, and your alarm is set for 3mph over. You drive 68mph and the beeping starts. Turn up the radio and you can almost drown it out. Sufferable for you, it is your system and you've been driving the car, and the route, for years.
Say your daughter's boyfriend needs to borrow the car because his is *cough* intheshop *cough*. The dufus is a speed hound and can't be trusted. He also listens to that screaming music. He drives the car 90 without even hearing the alarm and, lo and behold, blows a gasket. The exact thing the alarm was set to avoid.
How does this relate?
You are the QA supervisor at a small tool shop, manufacturing the same parts for the same customers for years. You've survived outside audits and have been using the same excuses for why the distribution folks keep shipping the wrong things. They make, on average, one mistake for every 500 shipments that leave the building. About two mistakes a week.
Sufferable. Until the distribution supervisor changes and starts churning through people, increasing the error rate to one mistake in every 250. Add that the external auditor for your QMS has changed to someone with a Six Sigma slant. And, you've got a major finding.
How to avoid this? You can put a governor in the car, limiting the speed to 70mph. (Set in place additional inspection before the packages leave the building.) This works, except you wouldn't be able to pass very many people on the interstate. Not a huge deal, until your spouse absolutely NEEDED to get to the hospital and 70mph wasn't enough. And who really wants to limit that fine Crown Vic you drive to 70mph?
You can actually take the car to the garage. (Improve the training of the employees and get management to understand that one in 500 really isn't great when you ship 175 a day.) This is better, because you've repaired the equipment to allow it to perform the way it was intended. AND, you know you can step it up to 85 on the interstate, if you so choose.
Either way, you should make certain your daughter's boyfriend doesn't think he can joyride in your car.
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