In recent years, a series of changes have been made in international markets, based especially on the elimination of customs barriers, which has caused profound changes in the rules of negotiation and commercialization of goods and services worldwide.
These changes have generated the opening of borders and have forced companies to initiate a process of change that leads them to new directions in their industrialization and commercialization process.
The goal of this process is to improve competitiveness and therefore quality and productivity, as the only form of subsistence before the entry into the country of products from other countries and the incursion into international markets as an alternative for growth and development.
This need for change has led our entrepreneurs to search for “new philosophies” that would allow them to better face this situation, in the face of which there is no turning back and that is definitely the only way to overcome the crisis that our country is experiencing. country, the product of a protectionism regime that, although it was the result of a policy of import substitution, like all the countries that began the industrialization process, based on this mechanism, eventually became an obstacle to free development. and real of the Venezuelan economy.
These “new philosophies” sought by our industrialists to achieve quality began to take shape in Venezuela in 1958 with the creation of COVENIN and later with the creation of the NORVEN Brand and the evaluation of quality systems in 1973 and 1975 respectively, indeed, already at that time courses were being taught and there was talk of imminent authors such as Deming, Juran, Ishikawa and others.
However, it is from 1988 when these philosophies really come into force, and it is then that we begin to speak of quality management, management quality, total quality and later of ISO 9000, which is nothing more than the orderly, precise and concise terms of the above-mentioned terms.
In any case, quality is only achieved with the handling of good management and good management is only achieved by ordering the operational activities of the Company, technical and administrative and with the insertion of functions that analyze and evaluate the information generated on a basis permanent continuous improvement, applying the corrective actions that are derived and updating the company standards with the constant training of human resources towards the real needs of our company.
If we evaluate the term continuous improvements, we find that these are not great changes, or innovations, they are permanent changes that originate day by day in our work, when we review, improve, implement and continue to review and improve permanently and systematically.
This systematization can only be achieved through the establishment of rules, norms, work procedures or whatever we want to call them, under a pre-established system that allows us, on the one hand, to order the processes and, on the other, helps us to know if what we are doing today is better than what we did yesterday ……
Many of our managers shudder when they hear the word norm or normalization, because they immediately associate it with indestructible or gringo rules, on the contrary, normalization is a dynamic, flexible process, in itself of continuous improvement in which they must even participate. the same Managers.
Standardization is a participatory process that allows us to establish a logical order in our work, better communication between the areas involved, a common language and therefore an ordering of our management.
I do not want to express with this that I have discovered a new work philosophy or a new paradigm, normalization is not an invention of the twentieth century, it has existed since man has existed and was born as a need for survival, language, commerce, clothing, social behavior and has accompanied man in his historical evolution until today
If we look at everyday life, we find practical examples of standardization, traffic lights, airports, the same industries, which would be one of these if they manufactured products without being clear about their specifications, or when starting a job without job description.
Until now, standardization has been the other side of quality, without standards there can be no quality, and for there to be quality standards are worth redundancy, they have to be made with quality.
You cannot speak of total quality, you cannot speak of quality management, you cannot speak of ISO 9000, if we do not have the solid foundations of our organization and these are only achieved by writing, sharing, improving, conserving our information through of documents that reflect the reality of a work process, with the participation of the people involved in its application and with mechanisms that allow its updating process on a continuous basis.
In the midst of this act of proselytizing to which I have dedicated myself in my professional development, someone commented to me at my insistence on writing, normalizing, documenting, communicating and recording the processes of a company, that the great figures of the world never wrote their history, To which I replied that fortunately someone did it for them because otherwise we would not have been able to enrich ourselves with so much wisdom.
