Due to the process of accelerated change and global competitiveness that the world is experiencing, in which the liberalization of economies and free competition come to characterize the business environment, it is precisely where the philosophy of Total Quality arises that is projected as a new system of business management and a factor of the first order for the competitiveness of companies.
fundamental-quality-total-business-managementThe philosophy of Total Quality provides a global conception that encourages Continuous Improvement in the organization and the involvement of all its members, focusing on the satisfaction of both the internal and external clients. We can define this philosophy as follows: Quality Management (the governing body is totally committed) (the client's requirements are understood and assumed exactly) Total (every member of the organization is involved, including the client and the supplier, when this may be possible).
Total quality is a concept, a philosophy, a strategy, a model of doing business and is focused on the customer. The concept of quality, traditionally related to product quality, is identified as applicable to all business activity and all types of organizations.
Total quality not only refers to the product or service itself, but is the permanent improvement of the organizational aspect; where each worker, from the manager, to the employee of the lowest hierarchical level is committed to business objectives.
The international standardization body, ISO, has defined quality as the totality of characteristics of an entity that gives it the capacity to satisfy explicit and implicit needs.
Quality is total because it includes each and every one of the aspects of the organization, because it involves and commits each and every person in the organization. Traditional quality tried to fix quality after making mistakes, but CT is focused on getting things done right the first time.
It is meeting the requirements agreed with the client and exceeding them, now and in the future, thereby overcoming the imprecision of the past, since it tends not only to be exact but also measurable. Another change that is obtained is that the Clients are no longer just the ultimate Users of the goods and services that we sell, now the term is expanded to include the idea of Internal Client, the people of the organization to whom we pass our work. With this concept, obviously everyone in the organization becomes someone's client; it is more it acquires a dual character of being Client and Supplier at the same time.
Perhaps to better understand the concept of Total Quality, it is convenient to start by saying that the objective of any organization, work group, area or job position or even the individual, is to generate a product or service that another organization, another area or another individual, whom we call Client, also called User or Consumer.
It should be pointed out that the term product refers to the result obtained from a process or an activity. Therefore, in general terms, this result can be a tangible product (for example, assembled or processed materials), or an intangible product (for example, knowledge or concepts) or a combination of these.
In a simple way we can say that in the expression Total Quality, the term Quality means that the Product or Service must be at the level of customer satisfaction; and the Total term that said quality is achieved with the participation of all the members of the organization..
Total Quality means a paradigm shift in the way of conceiving and managing an organization. One of these fundamental paradigms and that constitutes its raison d'être is constant improvement or continuous improvement. Total Quality begins by understanding the needs and expectations of the client and then satisfying and exceeding them.
It is the client who rates the quality of the product or service offered; hence, quality should not be taken at its absolute or scientific value, but rather a relative value, depending on the customer. It is necessary to accurately identify the changing needs and expectations of customers and their degree of satisfaction with the products and services of the company and those of the competition.
Keep in mind that customer expectations are given in terms of product or service quality, delivery opportunity, quality of care, reasonable costs and safety. The Client cannot be forced to buy the product that we want at the price that we want. An organization improves towards Total Quality when external and internal clients feel that they are consistently meeting their quality, opportunity, cost and service requirements.
The total quality
When starting this material oriented to Quality Management you will find fundamental concepts that will help you in your professional life. It is likely that in one way or another, they are models that you find in your day to day, even if it is not a systematized knowledge. You will notice and discover that Quality Management is essential to face an increasingly competitive scenario, and you can start to apply, in practice, processes aimed at quality.
"The superior and strongest species will devour the small and defenseless in the course of evolution," Darwin. And it happens that the strongest species on the market today, is usually the one that has an ISO (International Standardization Association) certificate, but above this, the one that produces to meet the needs of customers, taking into account all the requirements that these have.
Quality is a matter of survival, achieving it becomes a long-term vitality strategy. It is about quality of life, work, people, the institution, its objectives, its processes and in general all the components of the company. The quality is appreciated from the attention that the guards pay at the entrance of the establishment, to the effectiveness of the preventive signs. Nothing should escape the process, with a view to achieving excellence. Quality is profitability, productivity, market share; It is a series of elements that are combined in a coordinated way and that together mean business success.
Achieving total quality is no longer a goal, it is a minimum requirement of existence, a company that does not direct its objectives to the search and achievement of it, it is a company that will inevitably lag behind and will leave the market, since, currently there is room for "dinosaur" producers. Only with efficient operations, knowledge and market positioning, reaching the core of the client's needs and with absolute coordination, will it be possible to continue coexisting with equal opportunities in the market.
Issues such as market opening, global competition, high technology, process efficiency, can only be addressed by organizations that have a sense of what quality means, since the competition rules of the market and the demands of consumers, force producers to ensure that their product is of high certified quality.
Quality should be understood as a responsibility of all those involved in the process, but especially of management. To really achieve quality, it is necessary, extremely necessary, to listen to the customer, take into account their complaints, their claims, returns, suggestions, etc., that they have regarding the product and its quality refers, understood as what that he was looking for when consuming and using the product, if this aspect is not taken into account, he is not going anywhere, the phrase hackneyed and reviewed by everyone "the customer is always right", becomes more important than ever if you really want to consolidate excellence in the organization.
Many people find it difficult to define quality. However, it is very simple to detect when a product or service does not have quality: complaints, conflicts, dissatisfaction…
So, it seems that any intention to implement Quality Management is based on an endless list of "NOs": what not to do, how not to proceed, what should not be presented… Could it really be so? But… who defines what quality is? Sometimes you think that a product is optimal and your colleague insists on saying that its quality is unsatisfactory… Who is right?
To complicate matters, companies are currently required to present quality products and services. Why this requirement? Do you mean that before the products could be worse? And worse in relation to what?
These and many other questions arise whenever someone is interested in processes that seek quality. There are many definitions for this concept. Perhaps you will develop one that is most suitable for your life, your profession. Some say, like Edward Deming, that quality is meeting or exceeding customer expectations. Others like Feigenbaun, think that quality is a way of managing the company.
Between these two extremes - one totally directed towards the external public and the other that prioritizes the internal procedures of the organization - there is one point in common: the client. In short, the good management of a company seeks to satisfy the needs of the market, otherwise it will not be able to survive.
So, any product or service that fully meets the needs of all those who are involved in the process, presents quality. This concept of quality is flexible, adapts to the historical, socio-cultural and economic changes of various environments and encompasses all types of organizations (private and public companies, non-profit institutions, large micro-companies or multinationals, etc.).
Quality concept
An essential condition to ensure the implementation of a Total Quality strategy is to clearly define and understand what this concept means. That is, the managers of an organization that intend to implement Total Quality as a strategy to compete have to know exactly what they mean when they speak of quality, or to improve the quality of the product or service, they have to know how to divide the overall quality. of manageable improvement projects and how to measure product quality.
In practice, as Richard J. Schonberger, one of the experts in this field, refers to, «… quality is like art. Everyone praises it, everyone recognizes it when they see it, but each one has their own definition of what it is »The dictionaries provide us with a first base for the formation of this theoretical framework. One of the definitions that we find in the Little Illustrated Larouse tells us that Quality is the quality of a thing. Another meaning taken from the dictionary is that quality means a way of being of a person or thing. In these definitions, quality is implicitly being conceived as an attribute, property or characteristic that distinguishes people, goods and services, which is already an interesting approach to the concept of quality applied to organizations.
The international standardization body, ISO, in its standard 8402, has defined quality as “the totality of characteristics of an entity that gives it the capacity to satisfy explicit and implicit needs”.
The norm specifies that entity is an organization, call it company or institution, product or process. Complementing this definition, we will say that explicit needs are defined through a contractual relationship between Customers and Suppliers; while the implicit needs are defined according to the prevailing market conditions.
The elements that make up the needs are basically: security, availability, maintainability, reliability, ease of use, economy (price) and the environment. These needs, except the price, are defined by translating aspects and characteristics necessary for the manufacture of a good product.
Quality benefits
The quality that fully satisfies generates countless benefits:
• brings greater productivity, conquers and ensures customer loyalty, • guarantees a market space for the company or institution and
• allows it to remain faithful to its objectives.
Every organization has one main objective: to satisfy the needs of people. This objective includes others, secondary: development and presentation of products or services with quality, competitive cost and good distribution.
Now, who are the people that the organization must serve and satisfy?
Basically you interact with five (5) groups:
1. clients,
2. collaborators,
3. suppliers,
4. shareholders and
5. the company.
The relationship with such groups is always back and forth. The roles are continuously reversed. When requesting something, you are a supplier - it supplies information and specifications. The provider, in this first moment, is a customer: he receives information. After receiving raw materials, other products to be transformed or services, he assumes the role of customer. By providing clues about what they want and what their expectations are, the public assumes the role of provider. The organization at that moment becomes a customer: it receives the data, processes it and returns it in the form of higher quality products or services. At this stage it ceases to be a customer and becomes a market supplier.
We know that the interests of these groups are sometimes conflicting. Employees, for example, may want higher wages. When, in reality, this implies, eventually, higher costs that affect the final price of the product, which does not interest customers. These, at the same time, may want a more practical packaging. But the most practical packaging increases environmental pollution, which would not be meeting the needs of society. Quality Management needs to manage such conflicts, opting for measures that are not always easy and adopting processes to balance diverse interests.
Quality features
Quality characteristics are the properties and functions that the customer looks for in the item that he buys. In effect, the buyer, when acquiring a product, tries to satisfy a certain need; Therefore, it seeks the specific utility that the product gives it and not so much the product itself.
When we want a refrigerator, we do not buy any type of refrigerator, but rather one that has those peculiarities that best meet our needs. Hence, an article, in order to have quality, must have the characteristics that respond to the specific utility that the client seeks.
In the case of the refrigerator, its storage capacity, its dimensions, the power of the motor, a good sealing of its doors are quality characteristics, since it is these properties that, in general, a customer seeks when buying a refrigerator.
In the case of a power plant, resistance that provides adequate heat, a certain weight of the appliance that is not uncomfortable for the person using it, quality characteristics, a correct steam fluid, in the event that the iron is this type.
Therefore, we evaluate the quality of a product to the extent that it possesses the characteristics that we seek in it, or in other words, to the extent that it is «functional» “.
Negative quality factors
In addition to the above characteristics, for a product to have quality, it must meet the following conditions:
1. Reasonable price
2. Economical
3. Duration
4. Easy to use
5. That does not represent danger to the user and that they are not harmful to the environment.
The aforementioned characteristics are designated negative quality factors, because the fact that a product has these factors does not ensure that it is successful in the current international competition.
If the product lacks any of these elements, its quality is not satisfactory.
Positive quality factors
For a product to succeed in international markets, in addition to the negative quality factors, it must have the attributes called positive quality factors, because they give it comparative advantages with respect to similar products. These attributes are:
1. Good design
2. Some special feature by which the product is superior to the competition
3. Good appearance
4. In some cases, originality and some exclusivity.
Quality is for the benefit of society
Professor Genichi Taguchi, one of the most important authors of the philosophy of total quality, said that to the extent that products and services are of quality, to that same extent society reports less economic losses. For this reason, it defines quality as "the least possible loss reported by society for the products and services it acquires, from the moment the product leaves the company for the market."
This definition takes as its starting point the true and ultimate purpose of business. According to this concept of quality, companies exist for the good of society, in such a way that what is good for society is good for the company; and / or that it is harmful to society, it is also harmful to companies and institutions.
Quality is, ultimately, customer service, support for your well-being; This is contrary to the way people who abuse the good faith of customers think and act to obtain improper profits. These people, instead of serving customers, serve them.
If you do not take into account that the most important thing is to leave the customer satisfied and meet their expectations, we are easily tempted to:
to. use low quality materials under the pretext of lowering the price;
b. improperly raising the price in order to make quick and easy profits;
c. allowing employees to work "as best they can" without giving them proper training.
Criteria of this nature have caused great damage to the economy of the people; and sometimes not only to the economy, but also to health, the country's natural resources and the environment.
Where to apply Quality
Whenever a product or service, whether in the final result or in its process, presents an undesirable characteristic, it must receive a treatment to improve its quality. That product, process, or service has a problem. Transforming problems and challenges into opportunities for improvement is the area or specialization of those who act in Quality Management.
This means that actions to obtain quality can be taken in all types of companies that offer the market goods, services or information aimed at meeting the needs of various groups of customers.
It does not matter if you are self-employed, in a micro-company or in a multinational, or if your institution is for profit or not: the application of models focused on quality suffers direct interference from material capital (equipment, technology and other gender factors).) and human capital (mainly knowledge).
The main barrier faced to adequate material capital is financial limitations: modernization of equipment and processes, depending on the case, may require expressive volumes of capital.
In interventions alongside human capital, despite the fact that a financial contribution is also required, we will find another problem for them to be implemented: lack of motivation and time allocation.
People are not always motivated for this transformation, because any change causes fear and insecurity. People do not always have time to study, criticize and implement new models. But time is volatile: lost time is not recovered. The later the process starts the more time it will take to achieve the desired results. For that reason, it is always time to adopt the principles of quality. Principles that you will learn in the final stage of this module.
The concept of total quality
The concept of Total Quality, originated from the expanded concept of Total Quality Control and which Japan made of it one of the pillars of its industrial renaissance, has made it possible to standardize the concept of quality by defining it according to the customer and thus avoiding diversity of points of view as it happened in the traditional conception. This is how Quality becomes total.
Quality is Total because it includes each and every one of the aspects of the organization, because it involves and commits each and every person in the organization. Traditional quality tried to fix quality after making mistakes. But Total Quality is focused on getting things done right the first time. Quality is incorporated into the system. It is not an afterthought and the so-called acceptable quality levels become more and more unacceptable.
Complementing the aforementioned, we must say that Total Quality is meeting the requirements agreed with the client and exceeding them.
Perhaps to better understand the concept of Total Quality, it is convenient to start by saying that the objective of any organization, work group, area or job position or even the individual, is to generate a product or service that another organization, another area or another individual, whom we call, also called User or Consumer. Some prefer to call Customer when it comes to a tangible product such as a car, and User when it comes to a service, such as health or repair service. In our case we will call it Customer, whether it is a product or service.
It should be noted that the term product refers to the result obtained from a process or an activity. Therefore, in general terms, this result can be a tangible product (for example, assembled or processed materials), or intangible (for example, knowledge or concepts) or a combination of these; product is the work done by a job or workstation.
However, for the purposes of Total Quality, the term service has been defined as the result generated by activities at the interface between the provider and the customer and by internal activities of the provider, in order to know the customer's needs.
Example, in the case of the Toyota Company, customer satisfaction is classified into two aspects: product and service. When they refer to the product, they mean: quality, reasonable cost and timeliness in delivery. On the other hand, the service for this company means communication and permanent contact with the client, as well as attention, which can even be developed from perhaps recreational activities for clients; It is also part of the service to keep all the goods in contact with the customer, post-sales monitoring to verify the degree of satisfaction with the product, and the entire set of interrelationships or activities to capture the voice of the customer and satisfy him better.
From the point of view of Total Quality and accepting the ideas set forth in the previous paragraph, the concepts of product and service are not separate, either the product includes the service, or both aspects (product and service) must be planned separately and simultaneously to achieve better meet the needs and expectations of the client.
In a simple way we can say that in the expression Total Quality, the term Quality means that the Product or Service must be at the level of customer satisfaction; and the Total term that said quality is achieved with the participation of all the members of the organization. Total Quality involves a series of innovations in the area of business management that has spread to all countries in Europe and America, applying not only to manufacturing activities but also in the service sector and in public administration.
Total Quality means a paradigm shift in the way of conceiving and managing an organization. One of these fundamental paradigms and that constitutes its raison d'être is constant improvement or continuous improvement. Total Quality begins by understanding the needs and expectations of the client and then satisfying and exceeding them.
Strategic importance of total quality
Total Quality is a strategy that seeks to guarantee, in the long term, the survival, growth and profitability of an organization, optimizing its competitiveness, through: the permanent assurance of customer satisfaction and the elimination of all types of waste. This is achieved with the active participation of all staff, under new leadership styles; Being the strategy that well applied, responds to the need to transform the products, services, processes, structures and culture of companies, to ensure their future.
To be competitive in the long term and achieve survival, a company will need to prepare with a global approach, that is, in international markets and not only in regional or national markets. Well, being excellent locally is no longer enough; To survive in today's competitive world, you need to be on the world stage. To successfully adopt this strategy it is necessary for the organization to implement a process of permanent improvement. The essential aspects for the application of this process will be presented in the second session.
Quality-oriented management is an element that seeks to reduce the costs of "Non-Quality", based on delving into the nature of errors and failures, which are:
• What is done? It is correct if it is planned to meet the customer's needs.
• How is it done ?, related to the organization's ability to carry out its work in the most efficient way and at the lowest possible cost.
The two previous dimensions can be summarized as:
Over time it has been shown that the causes of not being in the upper right quadrant are:
o Lack of customer orientation. o Poorly planned processes.
o Poorly elaborated procedures. o Supervision failures. o Lack of training.
A quality program aimed at placing itself in the aforementioned quadrant, is a plan aimed at facilitating quality work with people and work units. In this program the personal attitude is fundamental, but not enough, above all it is required to understand that the concepts of kindness, precision and professionalism are born and are expressions of the clients' expectations.
Vision towards the client
Identifying an organization's clients should begin by finding out WHERE external clients are located and WHAT their needs are. From there, create an obsession to meet and exceed your needs and expectations.
Permanently raise the level of satisfaction to achieve their loyalty, which must be measured in terms of how customers re-acquire products and services, and the recommendation they make to others to acquire them.
To satisfy customers, it is not enough to eliminate the reasons for dissatisfaction or complaints, it is necessary to adopt a proactive attitude that leads to identifying the quality attributes that have an impact on satisfaction and delight their customers.
These attributes must be included in products and services, and in all interactions with them. Clients must perceive that in the products and services they acquire, THERE is a COST-BENEFIT relationship that is favorable to them.
A first aspect for a customer focus is to define and spread the vision of the organization aimed at customer satisfaction. The definition of this vision corresponds to the Senior Management of the organization.
As an example we present the vision of a prestigious company dedicated to transportation.
“We will make our profits by providing air and ground transportation of high priority products and documents that require fast and timely delivery in a totally reliable and competitively superior way. We will be collaborators, courteous and professionals among ourselves and especially with the public. We will strive to have fully satisfied customers in each of our transactions. "
The focus on customers will define quality policies. These should guide customer relationships. The specialists recommend us to take into account the following aspects:
• Deployment of requirements to the areas involved.
• Information provided to customers regarding products and services and how to relate to the organization.
• Facilities for the client to express their suggestions, complaints and claims.
• Attention to complaints.
• Measurement of customer satisfaction.
• Guarantees, etc.
Keep in mind that in most of the leading quality companies:
• The vision towards the CLIENTS is based on the quality policy, which marks the route of all the employees of the organization since they enter it.
• Becoming a philosophy and way of life of the staff that supports their obsession with the client.
• After the vision and policies related to external clients have been established in writing, it must be adequately disseminated and explained.
• This work must be done in the induction process of new personnel, in training actions, in boss-subordinate relationships, in work meetings, in jobs, at points of sale and customer service, etc.
But the most important thing is to ensure its application.
Identification and segmentation of clients
To satisfy the needs and expectations of both external and internal clients, it is necessary to know them fully.
This knowledge mainly involves:
1. Identification and segmentation of clients
2. Identification of the quality attributes of our products for clients.
3. Achieve compliance of these attributes by customers and
4. Obtain from them their performance appreciations.
In most organizations there are two types of external clients:
1. End users. What are those who consume or use the product or service.
2. Intermediate Clients. Those that make the product or service available to the end user.
The decision to acquire the product or service is made by the End User, but the Intermediate Client is of vital importance for the satisfaction of the latter.
For an organization to get to know its customers accurately, it is necessary to carry out a segmentation into homogeneous groups, since not all have the same needs and expectations.
To identify and segment customers, it is convenient to proceed by answering questions such as:
Who are the customers of our products and services?
Who are the end users?
What is its distribution by age, sex, education, income, etc,?
When do you use our product?
What is geographical distribution?
What use do they give to our products and services?
How do they use them ?, etc.
It is recommended to use marketing strategies for segmentation using factors such as size, economic capacity, among others.
After segmenting customers, their current and future needs and expectations must be identified. It is also necessary to identify the degree of customer satisfaction with the company and with the competition; for which the Benchmarking technique must be used (later we will talk about this technique).
It is important to consider that in the study of clients, both old and new, as well as those who were once clients and stopped being clients, to know the reasons why they were captured by the competition.
It is essential to look at the client for what HE IS and not as we want him to be. When identifying customer needs, it should be borne in mind that sometimes these are not manifest and therefore are not explicit.
Presenting a great challenge for the organization that must transform these needs into products and services.
On the other hand, the company must have an effective system that allows it to know, in addition to the negative aspects in relation to quality, the quality attributes that truly satisfy it, that is, positive aspects of quality. This means knowing how to listen to the customer's voice.
The voice of customers
For this you can make combined use of different techniques such as:
• Interviews.
• Focus Group sessions (groups of customers with similar characteristics) • Customer satisfaction surveys (by phone or visiting) • Customer observations when using the product.
• Observations received from support service personnel.
• Market studies.
• Analysis of competition.
• Analysis of complaints, claims and suggestions.
Studies to find out the voice of customers should not be carried out in isolation or sporadically, but should respond to planned and systematic actions.
All this will allow us to know:
• Quality attributes that are important to your customers.
• The ratings given to your company by customers with these attributes.
• Comparison with the competition.
• Complaints made about attributes.
With the information provided by customers, in all its aspects, the company will be in a position to plan the quality of its products and services. This process consists of coordinating and establishing everything that needs to be done to achieve customer satisfaction.
In this regard, Dr. Juran points out that this process establishes the goals for quality, develops the means to achieve them. He adds that quality planning consists of a fairly standardized set of steps that can be summarized as follows:
1. Identify both external and internal clients.
2. Determine the needs of customers.
3. Develop the characteristics of the products in relation to the needs of the clients.
4. Set goals for the characteristics of these products and develop a process to meet the goals of the products.
5. Check that the process is capable of operating under operating conditions.
Relationship with external providers
Main dimensions of the customer-supplier strategy
The existing bibliography and the empirical evidence itself recognizes that the customer-supplier association can be expressed mainly in the following dimensions:
a) Development of new products: The company must ensure that the supplier provides its support in the development of a new product, adapting the characteristics of the provisions and providing useful suggestions regarding processes, technologies, etc.
b) Technology: In this aspect, the exchange of information is important to facilitate both parts of the industrialization process.
c) Costs: The company and its suppliers must coordinate the development of cost reduction programs, within the framework of the continuous improvement process.
d) Training: The buyer must promote and support the development of training and training actions in aspects related to quality and the continuous improvement process, as well as provide technical assistance to its suppliers; so that they meet all the requirements and trust in the supplier-customer relationship is established.
e) Logistics: In this aspect, it is about ensuring that deliveries are made just in time, reducing stocks by both suppliers and the customer. This requires flexibility of production processes and improved reliability to guarantee the provision of goods and services in the long term and an adequate response capacity.
f) Information: A system must be established that allows for timely and effective communication between the client and the supplier, which facilitates the coordination of production programs as well as concerted deliveries and invoicing.
g) Investments: As the union between the buyer and its supplier consolidates, the client company may make certain investments to improve the supplier's materials and other supplies, with full confidence of the parties involved.
h) Process control: The union that is achieved between the client and the supplier allows, and it is also necessary, for them to know and carry out inspections of the supplier's processes; and even the buyer can participate as a guest in the supplier's quality system audits.
i) Long-term plans: The partnership between the client and its supplier allows both to establish common improvement strategies and objectives within a long-term perspective. In this sense, the persons in charge of purchasing have the task of promoting and facilitating this exchange and developing a key role of coordinators. This strategy should lead to reducing the number of suppliers for each type of material or component that a company buys.
Activities of an organization in relation to its supplier
We mention below the main activities that are recommended to be carried out to consolidate a strategy of association or union between an organization and its provider:
a) Segmentation, evaluation and selection of the best suppliers.
With reference to the selection of providers, Dr. Ishikawa points out that this should start with requesting samples from a large number of applicants. An aspect to highlight in the approaches of this expert is that he never refers to the price. The objective is to progressively reduce to a minimum the number of providers for each type of input or service required, establishing with them a long-term relationship of mutual convenience and loyalty.
From the point of view of Total Quality, it is considered that the supplier must meet three important requirements: a good product, a good quality control system and a good direction or management system. The supplier must demonstrate the ability to integrate technological innovations and be aware of the obligations regarding: price, opportunity in deliveries, etc. and in addition to respect for the secrets of the company.
b) Development of a Communications Improvement System
c) Visits to supplier facilities
d) Invitations to selected suppliers to get to know the company.
e) Supplier evaluation under ISO 9000 Standards
f) Establishment of a supplier performance measurement system.
g) Involvement of suppliers in solving problems and improving processes.
This action implies engaging the supplier's staff in the improvement teams in charge of eliminating the problems that arise with respect to the management of inputs and in advising on the best use of them.
h) Support in the implementation of certified quality to eliminate inspections at the reception.
i) Extension of the Total Quality and Certified Quality program to all suppliers.
j) Establishment of a just-in-time delivery schedule.
The realization of these and other activities must be developed progressively and in correspondence with the stages of the improvement process towards Total Quality. In other words, they must be duly planned and, of course, agreed with the supplier.
It is important, on the other hand, that the supplier understands the philosophy of the client company and that this in turn studies and understands the philosophy of its suppliers.
In all this, it is important to bear in mind that the appropriately stimulated and supported supplier can make an irreplaceable contribution of creativity and technological innovation in the supplies of its competition and can actively work to continuously reduce costs. Therefore, a company must share with its suppliers those experiences that are related to the process of improvement towards Total Quality.
This way of carrying out the internal work of an organization that seeks total quality can be presented graphically as follows.
Non-quality agents
Total Quality constantly seeks the improvement of all processes, so as to reduce the error rate, the ideal being zero defects. However, this desire and intention for continuous improvement is affected by a series of agents that generate a serious Non-Quality problem. We will understand that Non-Quality is everything that is negative in the organization and that is far from what is desirable. These Non-Quality points originate a series of costs, both in time and material, and what is more important generate invisible costs, which over time deteriorate the foundations of the Organization. Demotivation and lack of confidence are some of the most relevant components that are not immediately visualized, but that significantly affect staff performance.
In general, any product generates two types of costs:
a) Manufacturing cost: This is raw material, labor and manufacturing expenses, that is, the typical cost components.
b) Quality cost: All those values that must be disbursed to correct the defects and leave the product in a condition to be marketed.
The most serious thing about this situation is that many people have incorporated the error in their work, and the most serious thing is that another group has internalized a level of acceptance of the error. We are used to going to a restaurant and that the attention, presentation and quality of the product is not adequate to a food service, we accept that a meeting set at 16:00 hrs. start 30 minutes late, we consider it reasonable and natural to pay our late bills three or four days with some interest, we know that after purchasing a product it will be difficult for someone to take responsibility for an after-sales problem, we agree that the doctor or dentist makes us wait between one or two hours (at least) to see us, we are aware that a letter before leaving should be corrected for misspellings,margins, typing, etc., that is to say in general we do not assert our rights under any circumstances and we accept a degree of error, thus preventing Non-Quality from being remedied.
It is necessary to keep in mind that the acceptance of a certain level of error implies that the personnel consider that their work is efficient if it complies with the established norm or pattern of defects. That is Non-Quality, we must tend to "Zero defects", that is to do things right the first time, in the agreed way and in an efficient and timely manner. We must educate ourselves in the culture that things work well and everything is done optimally.
The following briefly describes a series of Non-Quality agents that clearly and precisely reflect what should not be. They represent in their essence the unwanted. The expression written in this article is a call and an exhortation to resist its passive acceptance. We must dig up our hatchet and fight Non-Quality once and hopefully forever….. it depends on us.
a) Principle of dead times. A "Dead Time" can be defined as the inactive time of our active period, or in other words the time we lose due to aspects of Non-Quality. Delays, waiting, and bureaucracy waste valuable time that we must avoid.
b) The theory of mass. The concept of mass has many meanings, but in this case we refer to the whole, the volume, the crowd, the majority of human beings. The Non-Quality Agent manifests itself in that group of individuals who think uniformly, strongly influenced by negative leadership.
c) The triumph of the seconds. It is part of our idiosyncrasy to celebrate second place as a triumph, reflecting our inability to aspire to the top. This Non-Quality agent represents conformity and the lack of growth and self-improvement.
d) The General Rumor. Jorge Valdano, Real Madrid coach, said in a television interview that "it only takes a jerk, a brush and a jar of paint to paint the Bernabeu", hinting at the negative phrases painted in the stadium against him when took over the team. The following day, television images traveled the world. General Rumor is based on the same principle. What do you think?
e) Bureaucracy or bureaucracy. Back in 1900, Max Weber, a German Sociologist, postulated that the Bureaucracy, that is, the order directed by the rule, is the most effective form of human organization. Today, on the threshold of the year 2000, there are many Weberians who complement their incompetence with the rule.
f) Mr. budget. In companies, the "Mr. Budget" forces us to dedicate a large part of our time to estimating the figures for the following year and generally those for the next five-year period. The lack of professionalism in its formulation, the repeated variations to the figures by senior management, have made this tool a real waste of time.
g) Urgent, always urgent. This Non-Quality agent is a resource widely used by all those people unable to plan their activities adequately, and who cannot find a better way to correct their negligence than to demand the information that is urgent as soon as possible. needed.
h) Busy man syndrome. This character shows and appears to be in constant occupation, with a large workload, but the true reality is that this manifestation only hides its inefficiency, since its unproductiveness and irresponsibility are evident in each activity that it participates.
i) Captain poison. In companies, it is always possible to glimpse negative entities, whose main concern is to make their rights prevail, in any order of things, completely forgetting their obligations. He never agrees with anything, frequently generating discord and enmity.
j) The King of paper. Today, in the modern administration there are some characters that make nothing work, that no process is activated, no authorization is granted, and in general nothing is done if the famous piece of paper is not brought, (papyromania). The role constitutes for them the "support" that justifies the action to be carried out. When the problem is given more importance than the solution, and when the criterion is replaced by a role, it is clear that there is an evident Non-Quality.
k) Doña reunion and her boys. One of the techniques most used by the modern company to analyze different situations and search for solutions is the meeting. However, there are a number of Non-Quality aspects that make this tool a waste of time. The delays of the participants, the excessive duration and the non-resolution, have transformed it into a real can.
l) The Peter principle. This principle indicates that in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence. A rule that every executive should keep in mind when nominating someone, is that a candle can perfectly serve to illuminate a small room, but it will be inadequate if it is placed on a public lighting pole to illuminate a street or avenue.
m) The Chamorro Circus. It is possible to visualize it in companies, where it is masterfully interpreted by those people who are unable to delegate functions, concentrating a large number of them on a single individual.
n) The famous Espinita Represents the undesirable of the Human Being since it adapts its behavior according to its convenience and according to the hierarch on duty. Subjects "Chupamedias" will always exist, since it is one of the ways in which mediocrity seeks to improve its relative position, to compensate for its lack of capacity.
o) Yes boss, all right. In any organization there are two types of individuals, those who SET, that is, they always agree on everything that their superior proposes and those who DISSENT, that is, those professional people who are capable and dare to indicate to their leadership the consequences that the new idea could cause.
The attack on non-quality
Today's world is a world of rapid change and intense competition. Markets are beginning to cover larger spaces and in turn tend to be more perfect, due to deregulation, removal of barriers and globalization, among other aspects. This is why companies that want to be successful and want to dominate the markets in which they operate, have to constantly worry about excellence in everything they do.
To gain competitiveness, the excellence of an organization lies in the fact that it must, on the one hand, be increasingly efficient in the use of its resources and, on the other, produce products and services that satisfy and hopefully exceed the expectations of customers. Thus, only companies that guarantee the client that their products and / or services contain the combination of factors that represent a good investment, can gain and maintain a prominent place in these highly competitive markets.
In this sense, a process of total quality or continuous improvement seeks the excellence of the products and services that the company provides, based on the excellence of all the components of the entity, privileging work with people in the organization. In this quest for excellence, the organization needs to undertake a larger process - in itself revolutionary - that involves a new style of doing business management.
Essentially the Quality Management, tries to apply the concepts of quality control to all the processes and activities of the organization, establishing as a number one priority excellence in everything that is done within the company. Proposing also as a goal, the absolute quality in everything that is offered to clients - both external and internal - thus creating more efficient, more dynamic, more results-oriented organizations, resulting in more real costs and greater profitability.
The latter proposes the idea that you can really make money through quality, and that quality efforts are more than paid for by your own means.
So if quality is money, is it free - as Crosby says - or does it cost?
Establishing a quality process, oriented towards excellence, seems to have an associated cost. The real problem lies in how to evaluate the cost and even more so how to evaluate the benefit of the process, while both results involve central aspects of the Quality Management process.
There are costs that are due to control and costs that are due to lack of control. The former have to do with production planning and control activities in order to meet customer requirements and prevent product nonconformity, and the latter are caused by failures in the technical specifications of the product, which cause its variability.
In the same sense, Non-Quality is defined as, everything an organization presents outside the desirable pattern, from the point of view of the ability to satisfy express or implicit needs of a client. This last concept can be summarized in two types of actions: "doing the wrong things" and "doing things the wrong way", since from this perspective, the cost of quality would simply be the combination of the costs that these two activities.
In other words, the generation of costs is not attributable to Quality, but to Non-Quality, which seems to indicate that the great challenge of Quality Management lies in what to do to reduce and / or eliminate non-qualities, since that each peso saved in the cost of the No Qualities, will directly increase the benefits.
Quality Management is not only based on the search for resources and processes that make it possible to fully satisfy the requirements of external customers, but also consists of strategically managing these processes in such a way as to induce quality efforts directed at all activities an optimization of internal processes destined to affect quality, in order to effectively attack quality costs and ultimately reduce the hidden factory.
The results of the implementation of effective Quality Management in the processes will be reflected in the fact that each time the products processed and exported with less injection of resources will be greater, redirecting these saved resources - quality savings - towards ends more productive. That is, a continuous and increasing organizational efficiency.
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