Same build-up or increasing tolerance happens in business too. What was once the norm, or the status quo, isn't any more.
Production standards will include waste and excess time. They're reviewed periodically and they change, especially if 95% efficiency is acceptable. Pretty soon, based on the original standard, 85% is acceptable by adapting to 95% of 95% of 95%, etc. So much waste and inefficiency is built in that the costs have sky-rocketed and the product is tagged for obsolescence.
In a retail setting, stockers may notice that some product is out of place and re-shelve what they can in the time allowed. They can't get it all done. Pretty soon, more product is out of the assigned place. Now stockers get a little careless about where the product goes because shelving the product is more important than shelving it in the right place. In worst cases, product ends up in multiple places, and people assisting customers are clueless on how to help them.
Even quality standards slip, especially with visual criteria. A person can say that the result of their process is close to what it did last time. As long as it still passes, there's no correction of the process. The process varies again but the result is nearly the same as last time. As long as it passes, there's no correction. There's no correction till the results are classified as failures. If there are no clear standards, they may never get rejected.
This happens with training. Multiple sessions through various educators become like the kids' "telephone" game where the last person heard a message that's entirely different from the message that started. Even with a resetting of the message through training materials, the message is just enough different that expectations for the training have changed.
What's the fix? First, be aware that it happens. You have to decide how much of a deviation is acceptable. Nothing's perfect. However, accepting deviations is okay for the short-term but then effort and investment has to happen to correct it back to the original mark. For our ears, we have to turn down the sound. Decades ago, Taguchi
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