Jessica- I agree with the others here. You have really been charged with two things. The first is to establish a metrics and reporting system around defects in your processes. This is more of a business process improvement project that may need some changes to defect reporting, data collection, and analysis. If you already have a good defect tracking system the baseline should be easy (control charts, paretos, etc.)
The second part of this (defect reduction) will really depend on what you find in the first part. You may have several projects focused on specific defects and their root causes. These improvements in cumulative may help meet the reduction target. If you try to tackle all the major contributiors in one project you will find issues with timelines and focus. Therefore your statement is really more of an initative or program in which smaller better scoped project should be identified.
Good scoping of the projects is key. Once scoped properly, then it will evident on what to do to move forward (process mapping, process measurements, defect analysis, FMEA’s, DOE’s, etc).
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