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Managing Quality A Prerequisite of Your Market Success |
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by Vadim Kotelnikov & Ten3 East-West
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Why Quality Management? Quality improvement is integral to running a business the smart way. To drive responsibility for the quality process through the ranks of your organization, you should assess individual contributions to the quality process as part of every employee's periodic review. Quality Is a Must, but Not a Guarantee of Success Quality is now expected by consumers and is ceasing to be a point of differentiation. When developing your differentiation strategy, keep in mind that quality is no longer is a differentiator in the world of marketing; it is a prerequisite. You cannot build a powerful brand without it. But quality is an expectation, not a tiebreaker. Quality is a given these days, not difference.4 The New Definition of Quality Past definitions of quality focused on conformance to standards. Such definitions focused exclusively on the customer's perception of quality and didn't take into consideration how these standards are met - through defect prevention or a considerable rework of a specific part or service. In addition, past definitions of quality often overlooked the fact that product or services rarely consist of a single element. The new definition of quality focuses on achieving "value entitlement."3 It defines quality as a state in which value entitlement is realized for the customer and provider in every aspect of the business relationship. "Value" represents economic worth, practical utility, and availability for both the customer and the company that creates the product or service. "Value entitlement" means:
Comprehensive Focus on Quality and Performance Improvement The best organizations have a systemic and comprehensive focus on quality and performance improvement that applies to all areas of product and service, to all areas of the organization and to all people within the organization. This focus is not just a program, but a way of life, a strategy requiring improvement by everybody in everything all the time and pursuing a vision of everyone doing the right things. Customer's Perspective of Quality Customer expectations are continuously increasing. Brand loyalty is a thing of the past. Customers seek out products and producers that are best able to satisfy their requirements...More 80/20 Principle & Quality Management According to the 80/20 Principle, effort should be focused on dealing with the 'vital few' sources of off-quality products, rather than tackle all the problems at once. If you remedy the most critical 20% of your quality gaps, you will realize 80% of the benefits...More Total Quality Management (TQM) TQM refers to an integrated approach by management to focus all functions and levels of an organization on quality and continuous improvement. TQM focuses on encouraging a continuous flow of incremental improvements from the bottom of the organization's hierarchy. TQM is not a complete solution formula as viewed by many - formulas can not solve managerial problems, but a lasting commitment to the process of continuous improvement....More Six Sigma While traditional quality programs have focused on detecting and correcting defects, Six Sigma encompasses something broader: It provides specific methods to re-create the process itself so that defects are never produced in the first place...More Kaizen & Quality Control Circles TQC is a management tool for improving total performance. TQC means organized Kaizen activities involving everyone in a company - managers and workers - in a totally systemic and integrated effort toward improving performance at every level. It is to lead to increased customer satisfaction through satisfying such corporate cross-functional goals as quality, cost, scheduling, manpower development, and new product development....More Leveraging Your Service-Profit Chain Delivering top quality service must be brought to the top of your company's needs hierarchy as one can draw a straight line between superior service and your sustainable profit growth. To achieve success, you must make superior service second nature of your organization....More Integrated Environmental and Quality Management System (EQMS) A recent market study in the Netherlands initiated by The Dutch Technical Committee on Quality Management and carried out by the Netherlands Standardization Institute (NEN) in collaboration with Tilburg University TIAS Business School concluded that full integration between ISO 9001:2000 and ISO 14001 was possible and it was easiest for organizations that had structured their ISO 9001 Quality Management System together with their business processes and such integration could lead to valuable synergies...More Case in Point: Quality Measures at General Electric (GE) Jack Welch, the former legendary CEO of GE, made quality the job of every employee. Senior manager's bonuses were tied to Six Sigma results. Welch credits the Six Sigma quality initiative with "changing the DNA of the company", meaning that it has had a greater impact on the productivity of GE than any other program. To help their businesses to track progress in the six sigma program, GE designed five corporate measures: Customer satisfaction; Cost of poor quality; Supplier quality; Internal performance; and Design for manufacturability...More |
Bibliography:
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"Competitive Manufacturing Management", John M. Nicholas, 1998
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"The 80/20 Principle", Richard Koch, 1998
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"Six Sigma", Mikel Harry and Richard Schroeder, 2000
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"Differentiate or Die", Jack Trout with Steve Rivkin, 2000
