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The importance of quality (Quality management (When it comes to achieving…
The importance of quality
Quality and business sustainability
Why is quality important?
Any organisation that has ongoing issues with quality will ultimately suffer in a range of ways
Late delivery can adversely effect the businesses relationship with the customer and representational damage
Any quality issues that cause waste or reworking could make the cost of the operation rise, which could in turn lead to issues with planning, stock control and resource management
Quality issues have a tendency to accunulate and escalate
Research suggests that a 30% improvement in process costs could be made if an organisation managed to tackle all of its quality issues
Many organisations target quality issues and defects in an effort to reduce them to a minute level - they use techniques such as Six Sigma
A management approach to improving business processes by reducing the probability an error or defect will occur
The target is that failures are reduced to the point that 99.99966% of the time failure does not occur.
Technical definition - all results within six standard deviations of the mean are successful
Sigma (σ) is the symbol used to represent standard
deviation, hence the term ‘six sigma
Quality management
For an organisation to fully manage quality it must consider quality from the perspective of the customer and define what quality means in terms of the customer needs
Quality is defined as -
meeting and/or exceeding customers’ expectations
When it comes to achieving quality there are certain approaches that successful organisations have in common
Managing quality is the responsibility of the whole organisation, not just a specific quality department
Internal processes are dealt with as customer-supplier processes, even to the degree that service level agreements exist internally
They focus on ‘looking for improvements at each stage of the process’ rather than ‘not making errors’
Individuals take personal responsibility for delivering products or
services to the customers (internal or external)
Customer faced definition is very different to the more technical and process-driven view of quality
Might include such terms as ‘right first time’ and ‘defects per thousand’
Organisations can fail to appreciate customer perception
Organisations need to look at internal measurements and improvements
But when considering the quality of the product or service the customer experience or perception also matters
Cost of quality
One approach to delivering quality products or services is to aim for perfection and is often based on financial reasoning
Organisations that practice Lean manufacturing techniques
Take the view that it is less expensive to meet the needs of customers than to not meet them
They believe that the effort required to correct errors and deal with poor customer experience exceeds the effort required in performing the task correctly the first time
Quality control is only required if there is a chance that errors can occur
Costs associated with quality include
Prevention costs
Making sure errors do not happen
Appraisal costs
Establishing and measuring the level of quality achieved in products or services
Internal costs of defects
The cost of dealing with defects when found during production
External costs of defects
The cost of dealing with a defect that reaches the customer (in some organisations customers can be internal as well)
Quality assurance and quality control
Quality assurance (QA)
Covers all the elements needed to make sure that the finished product or service meets all the criteria given or expected by the customer
Includes design, marketing, finance, operations, and HR
About making sure the different systems work together correctly so that quality issues do not happen
Quality control (QC)
Covers all the elements needed to fulfill the technical product or service requirements for quality
Tends to focus on the manufacturing or delivery end
Involves monitoring outputs to detect quality issues as quickly as
possible
Anything related to the monitoring of a process to reduce poor performance or defects can be considered part of the quality control system
You could say that quality control is a reactive approach to
quality
Quality systems
Developing suitable strategies to deal with quality can be costly and requires expertise
It is common for an organisation to utilize an
externally designed and approved quality system
EG - ISO 9000
An internationally recognized quality management system that many organisations employ
Designed, licensed and assured by auditors
The system can be tailored to any operation
The 'off the shelf' system is very popular with larger organisations as they can be implemented without requiring internal experts and the international standards help with customer perception
Alternatives include:
EFQM Excellence Model
Allows people to understand the cause and effect relationships between what their organisation does (the Enablers) and the Results it achieves
According to the EFQM website, by adopting a system such as this an organisation
Takes advantage of external expertise and development of the system
Gains credibility for its system through external assessment and
verification
Can focus on the effective application of the system rather than the development of the system.