Inevitable conditions for quality to be a successful reality in any company.
There are conditions that any company that wishes to obtain a high level of quality must meet to ensure that it is permanent, accepted, perceived and certified by its clients. The first thing that should be clear is that Quality is established by customers, not the company, and implicit requirements weigh more for clients than explicit ones (eg the Service). For this reason, establishing a system that allows to permanently satisfy the clients' requirements is not a trivial task and that is achieved with little or no resources (time and money, among others). It is very important that before a company decides to implement a Quality assurance system it knows what it is facing and what are the main commitments that it must fulfill in order to successfully achieve the objective of achieving Quality. That is precisely what it is about, making a total and perennial commitment to Quality.
First of all, Senior Management must be clear about Quality and everything related to it. For this reason, it is a requirement to take a course or seminar, since the Senior Management of the company is the one that must first commit seriously and formally, but for this they must know what commitments they must assume (mainly include leading the process of ensuring Quality, change in organizational culture, supply of resources, time and money). Until Senior Management is fully convinced, determined and committed to Quality, it is better not to start the implementation, because it is almost certain that the objective will not be met.
In addition, Senior Management must be fully aware of all the changes that Quality generates at all levels of the company, which they must know, promote, implement, support, maintain and improve. These changes are:
- Senior Management must unify the criteria, principles, rules or standards (Policies, Regulations, Technical Sheets, Requirements, etc.), which must establish them in writing, make them known publicly and monitor compliance. It is the responsibility of Senior Management to review and make the respective changes when necessary. That is the leadership that Management Quality requires. Although the ideal is that the Management personally lead the implementation process, when they do not have enough time to do so they should appoint a representative with all the support and authority to help them. Another mistake is that Senior Management at this point "drains the bag" and leaves the Representative alone to her fate and seriously compromises the success of the project.Generally, companies do not see the need for the strategy (if they have it) to be known to all involved and less aligned (this problem is solved among others with the Balance Scored Card). With regard to Quality, Senior Management must begin by formalizing its commitment through the Quality Policy, which must be in writing and published by the company and known by all involved (including customers, employees and suppliers).employees and suppliers).employees and suppliers).
- It is advisable in most cases to hire an external advisor. Because one of the main problems faced by the implementation of Quality is RESISTANCE TO CHANGE, and the most effective way to solve it is with the knowledge and presence of an external person or company, yes, that shows that they know about the subject, that It has been successful in previous projects and above all that it has the credibility of everyone in the company, especially of Senior Management, which is the one that often demonstrates the most resistance (not so much with words but with contradictory actions or lack of action).
- Everyone in the Company without exception must commit in writing and comply with the established standards and criteria. Compliance with the established standards and criteria must be monitored and this record will be the basis on which the corresponding sanctions or recognitions will be judged.
- All decisions made, not only with regard to Quality, must be in accordance with the criteria, principles, standards and established policies. This is one of the most difficult things to achieve, and more in companies where Autocracy prevails. It is less difficult in companies that have an established formal organization (organization chart, functions, objectives, indicators, etc.).
- The focus of work stops being by tasks and separately to become a team and multifunctional work. Now the results of the company prevail over individual interests. If you do not know how to work in a team, you need to start with a practical workshop to stop looking for culprits and start looking for solutions.
- Quality requirements must be established and documented not only for the products (Technical Sheets), but also for the Raw Materials and Processes.. Let us remember that Quality is established by the clients, that is why we must use the means and the time necessary to clearly establish the requirements that we must meet from the client's point of view. This is very important as this defines the cost of the project, the implementation time, the resources required, the scope of the project (if necessary in the whole company or in a few processes). Setting the requirements wrong is another of the big mistakes when trying to implement Quality, you can end up with the same problems or generating new ones, creating or improving processes that the client will not value, investing time in unnecessary training, offering more but at an onerous cost, creating too many documents, creating bureaucracy, complicating existing processes,generating discomfort or unnecessary discomfort, losing credibility and confidence in the project and ultimately ruining the implementation of Quality. It is important to comply with one of the main rules of Quality, Do not compromise if you are not willing and sure to comply. You do not have to be so ambitious, you should start with some basic requirements and with what in Quality are called critical processes, based on which the Quality system is assembled. Once consolidated, the improvement stage begins where you can go into more detail or take into account other processes. It should not be intended to cover or solve all problems from the beginning and at one time.It is important to comply with one of the main rules of Quality, Do not compromise if you are not willing and sure to comply. You do not have to be so ambitious, you should start with some basic requirements and with what in Quality are called critical processes, based on which the Quality system is assembled. Once consolidated, the improvement stage begins where you can go into more detail or take into account other processes. It should not be intended to cover or solve all problems from the beginning and at one time.It is important to comply with one of the main rules of Quality, Do not compromise if you are not willing and sure to comply. You do not have to be so ambitious, you should start with some basic requirements and with what in Quality are called critical processes, based on which the Quality system is assembled. Once consolidated, the improvement stage begins where you can go into more detail or take into account other processes. It should not be intended to cover or solve all problems from the beginning and at one time.Once consolidated, the improvement stage begins where you can go into more detail or take into account other processes. It should not be intended to cover or solve all problems from the beginning and at one time.Once consolidated, the improvement stage begins where you can go into more detail or take into account other processes. It should not be intended to cover or solve all problems from the beginning and at one time.
- Having clear and documented the requirements, it must be established what is needed to fully comply with them, this is what is called Quality Planning. Now if nothing is planned in the company, how are we going to pretend to do a Quality planning ?, since many companies "work" "solving" fully preventable problems, or as it is commonly said "putting out fires" and the best worker is be the best firefighter, and when the firefighter becomes arson and the Management continues to consider him a hero? It is never too late to learn to plan and making Quality plans in practice is an excellent learning process and if Management is truly leading Quality, it is time to apply planning in other company processes such as administration. In planning, what is to be accomplished is established,How it is going to be fulfilled, Who is directly responsible, When it is going to be fulfilled and Where it will be executed. All in writing, reviewed and approved by Management. It is changing the culture of “putting out fires” for the culture of prevention and improvement.
- The PDCA continuous improvement process must be put into practice. Plan, Do, Check and Act. Many companies are very good at doing, that is, they only apply the H. But they do not know how to control (Verify), they do and do but they do not control the process, neither the inputs nor the result, anything can and does happen. They believe that controlling work is being or having foremen who pressure employees and verify that they meet a schedule and x quantity of production. But there are problems, there is waste of time and materials, there is no preventive maintenance and the machines are made to work even asking for repair, and the quality claims of the customers do not wait. And the solution ?. Blaming someone or making someone pay or removing you from work. Is that a solution? No. Because after a while the problem reappears and sometimes more serious. There is no training.
The company loses customers, loses money and ultimately bankruptcy and now who do we blame? Other times a pseudo Quality Control is applied, another common mistake. Yes, to have quality you need control, but a control based on the serious establishment of requirements and a Quality Plan, also called a Control Plan, which is the planning of quality control. It establishes what is controlled, how it is controlled, with what instruments or means it is controlled, who controls it, when it is controlled, where it is controlled and how the non-conforming product is segregated. This is very different from what the common people, including the majority of Senior Executives, think that quality control is having one or more people who separate the “good” products from the “bad” at the end of the process,And another problem, how do you know that they are good or bad if they do not have to verify it? This generates conflicts and a bad work environment when confronting the criteria of the employees against those of the quality controllers.
Generally, in the end everything is "good", without doing any rework or rework but more expensive, because "we cannot lose the material and the time invested" even at the cost of a return, the good name of the company and losing the customer.
- You have to invest in quality verification instruments or equipment. These must be justified in the Control Plan. These instruments or equipment are generally for the control of weights and measures. Others must be manufactured or ordered manufactured, such as gauges, models, etc.
- Acting must also be applied, which is different from Doing. It is the action of Improve. It is to evaluate non-compliance with the rules and take the necessary actions to correct the root problem so that it does not recur. For this there are troubleshooting techniques that are good to learn in hands-on workshops. But everything does not end there, you have to follow up on the solutions, verify that they were effective or not, and take action again until the problem is definitively resolved, that is when we say that we prevent fires from being generated. It is not easy to get used to living in a lower stress level than we are already used to. By preventing and planning, many last minute problems that generate the highest level of stress in any company are avoided.When a company offers a job that includes "work under pressure", will there be no planning in it?
- What to do with those heroes who, by preventing the fires, will lose their “job”? They must become the leaders needed to make the changes and achieve success. You have to convince them to be an important part of the project. They form the "Elite Group" or Quality Committee. It is those who must be given more quality training so that they can be multipliers with their colleagues, that they go from being oppressors to being teachers, that people comply with orders not out of fear but out of respect and conviction, that they go from being Bosses a Facilitators. Change Power relations for Service relations, so that everyone lives and shares Quality.
- You must invest in training. But in practical training that is justified in the Quality Plan and in the Control Plan, it is the training in techniques and tools necessary to successfully complete the Quality assurance project. Since you get some free training, it goes without saying that the biggest investment is in time since it must be done during working hours.
- Another investment that must be made is in relation to the Work Environment. Order and cleanliness is the first aspect that must be improved in all areas of the company, for which techniques such as 5S are used. Another aspect is that of industrial safety. This involves preventive maintenance, training in risk elimination, the use of adequate safety elements for each job, the use of equipment for cargo transfer, among others.
- Everything must be identified and easy to locate. And if a final product presents a problem, it must be easy to trace and determine its traceability (when it was manufactured, with what materials, from which supplier, among others) to know the root cause of the problem and solve it. The use of alphanumeric and bar codes is ideal for both internal and external management.
If everyone in the company, starting with Senior Management, commits to Quality and complies with the commitments, it is certain that the company will establish Quality as its best identity in front of customers and society.
