Section Four: Quality Management
Conformance to Requirements that have a Fitness for Purpose
I know it when I see it
4.1. The Case for Quality Management
Quality has to be managed. It will not happen on its own.
Everyone wants quality, but are not always prepared to pay the price. The investment for quality has to be made today. The cost of failure is in the future. That is why quality will not happen unless the chief executive officer is fully committed to quality. Fully committed means fully committed, and means he will not trade off quality for better short term results.
There is no question that quality investment is a good investment. (Remember that the investment under the definition has to have a Fitness for Purpose). Why then do so many organisations fail to invest? Quite simply they realise that investment for quality has to be made today, but ignore the fact that the cost of failure is in the future.
What is the cost of quality? It is the sum of three components:
It can be shown that cost of quality represents a significant percentage of a company's revenue. Experience shows that cost of quality can be significantly reduced by increasing investment in prevention.
Failure includes scrap, credit notes, engineering changes, re-calls, warranty settlements, court and out of court settlements if the product or service was not fit for purpose, and in the final resort can involve the liquidation of the company.
Appraisal is the cost of quality control, checking, and re-checking.
Prevention is up front investment in research and development including expenses involved in the study of what is required to have Quality, investment in the prevention of failure, and of great importance investment in education and training of people. Investing to train people to produce defect free products that do not need checking is a good investment. As with any other investment, the business case has to be developed and managed.
4.2. The Case for Continuous Quality Management
Quality has to be managed continuously. It will not happen on its own.
Consider :
4. requirements and measurements
6. quality improvement projects
7. full involvement of everyone
Managers at all levels can demonstrate and make effective their commitment to quality by:
Education programs should include:
A Quality Council is chaired by a manager and consists of a number of other managers who meet regularly ( say, one hour per week ) to steer, direct and co-ordinate quality improvement activity. A Quality Council can be for a department, a function, a business area, a product, a service, or may be put in place for a cross-functional or cross-product process such as billing or accounts payable.
Functions of a Quality Council:
4.4.4. Requirements and Measurements
Quality is conformance to requirements. A requirement is a mutually agreed quantified expression of a need by a customer to a supplier for a product, service, or any end product of work performed at any stage of any operation in any process.
Customers and suppliers may be internal or external to the organisation.
To establish requirements and measurements for an organisational unit, a process, or an individual involves the following steps:
4.4.4.1. Validate the mission.
The job description of the individual is the mandate for the supply of work product to customers and for the demand for work product from suppliers. So is the mission of a department or cross-functional process.
4.4.4.2. List and describe current work products.
These include all work products currently supplied to customers and received from suppliers.
4.4.2.3. Validate work product for business need.
Things change. Is this one really needed? Can it be eliminated in whole or in part? Only work products that have a viable business need should be produced and delivered.
4.4.2.4. Identify customers and suppliers
The correct identification of a customer needs reflection. A true customer may not always be the one that has traditionally been regarded as the customer. The design & promotions department may produce promotional material for a product or brand manager - is the latter the customer, or is the customer the sales-force or the external distributor?
For internal activities, suppliers are generally easier to identify.
4.4.2.5. Agree customer and suppliers requirements and measurements.
Establishing requirements is a participative process. The agreement may require negotiation, arbitration, and should be formal and documented.
Negotiation takes account of the fact that customers and suppliers have their own missions, job descriptions, priorities, resources, and management. Views may differ on fitness for purpose.
All requirements should include agreed quality measurements and standards, together with agreed methods and responsibilities for making, collecting, and analysing those measurements.
Quality measurements
May be customers and suppliers ratings of usefulness, value or satisfaction.
May relate to: timeliness, regularity, duration, availability, item quantity, rate, performance, correctness, accuracy, reliability.
Quality standards
The quality standard for all work products should be defect-free. A numeric expression equivalent to defect-free should be used to express fitness for purpose. For example, answer the telephone after 3 rings.
Quality targets
To set a defect-free target in one step is de-motivating. Set intermediate targets and lower the target after achievement. In the example above, start at 4 rings.
Method of measurement
Agree with customers and suppliers. Do not set up bureaucracy. Look carefully at frequency, effectiveness, sources, methods of collection, and methods of analysis.
Quality should be integrated into all plans developed in the organisation.
4.4.6. Quality Improvement Projects
A structured and managed project aimed at improving customer satisfaction or business effectiveness in a particular area:
4.4.7. Full Involvement of everyone
Everyone can contribute. The people normally know what is wrong. People involvement is planned, managed and effected through:
.
Executive speeches, house journals, videos, posters, and all other normal communication methods should be used to give confidence, encouragement and the good example that comes from success stories and tangible results, together with management's continuous commitment to quality.
Recognition for quality improvement demonstrates that it is in the mainstream of management attention, and it encourages quality directed effort and initiative throughout the organisation.
Basic recognition for quality improvement should come through performance plans, where quality improvement should have equal weight with other performance criteria. Do the job and improve the quality.
Recognition in the form of monetary or other awards can be given for special achievement in quality improvement, and consideration should be given to:
Quality improvement is a continuous process. Continuous review by management is necessary. Some CEO's only review quality measurements. All good quality organisations review these measurements alongside weekly and monthly reviews of revenue, cost, expense and profit.
If it's not reviewed by top management it's not important ?
This is the end of Section Four: Quality Management
Go to : Acknowledgements