Introduction
We have to start by talking about the enormous resources that a company loses, when its management does not adhere to excellence in terms of quality of processes, services and products. Studies carried out by various researchers and gurus at the level of Deming, Juran, Feigenbaum and Ishikawa, tell us about waste due to lack of quality that averages between 25 and 35 percent of the total invoiced. Being the lack of quality one of the main reasons for many other types of waste, generated by the need to cover or overcome the shortcomings in terms of failures and errors.
Taking into account the aforementioned figures, it is totally clear the enormous potential for improvement in terms of benefits and profitability for the company to improve its quality levels, to generate products and services "the first time" but not only for the external client but also for inmates.
An improvement in quality implies increasing productivity levels and consequently reducing production costs, but also the general costs of the company, increasing competitiveness both through higher quality and lower costs. The company thus has the possibility of offering high-value products (higher quality at lower prices) or to earn through “premium” prices resulting from a high level of quality and design.
When it comes to quality, it is not only a matter of complying with the specifications, but also of duly taking into account, as previously mentioned, the quality of the processes, but without neglecting the quality of customer service, quality of the work environment, the quality of the environment, the safety of workers, users and the community as a whole.
Thus, total quality is something that encompasses everything, both in processes and in areas and sectors. Total quality implies an ethical commitment to excellence, which means a fervor for the continuous improvement of products and processes.
It is impossible to generate quality outside the company, without first generating quality inside it. Improving leadership, training, production processes, prevention and evaluation systems, personnel hiring and management, security and internal communication are some of the crucial factors for the company to be highly competitive and to exceed its opponents. Only by generating internal excellence is it possible to position itself in the minds of users as a provider of products and services with high added value.
Because quality responds to a management and work ethic, managers freely choose between doing things well (their activities, processes, and products or services) or doing them poorly. Doing them well implies the reward of increasing sales, reducing costs, improving the quality of life in the company, and making its survival feasible in the medium and long term. Not doing it, that is, choosing to do things wrong or only more or less well means the generation of problems in terms of consumer or user satisfaction, loss of competitiveness and consequently loss of market share, loss of preference and loyalty of the customers and consumers, and of course serious financial problems.
Financial problems are the effect of bad management, and that bad management is a reflection of the lack of quality in terms of production, services, hiring and training of personnel, design, and credit management, among others.
That is why we once again emphasize that when it comes to Total Quality, reference is made to each and every aspect of the organization.
It is useless to have the best product if you do not have the best distribution or the best customer service. What is the use of having a good design if you do not have good production processes and excellent suppliers of inputs. Generating the best product at a cost that cannot be met by the market will not do much either.
Quality implies taking into account the wishes and needs of consumers, internal (for the purposes of the process) and external (regarding the products and services offered). It also means continuous improvement. And this continuous improvement does not accept the lack of adaptation to the new demands. That is why continuous improvement makes for total quality.
As the title of one of the main management works of recent times indicates, companies must seek excellence. Only excellence in management will allow them to offer the highest quality in the most efficient way.
Thirty are the key factors that an organization must take into consideration if it intends to achieve Total Quality. These are the critical questions that will be developed below:
1. Commitment of senior management
Senior management must be fully aware of and ingrained with the strategic and operational importance of quality, for which it must fully commit to both leadership and planning aspects, as well as those related to training, continuous improvement of processes and, prevention and evaluation systems that allow the highest level of quality and satisfaction. This implies allocating all the resources that are necessary to make quality feasible, whether it is financial resources or dedication time.
2. Team work
The implementation of teamwork systems aimed at solving problems and generating solutions are a way to achieve the active and committed participation of the people who are closest to the problems, thus making effective use of their knowledge and experiences, in addition to provoking teamwork which apart from generating synergies allows a faster implementation of the solutions. A highly competitive company cannot be conceived without the existence of teamwork, and especially without Quality Control Circles. It should always be borne in mind that “there is no commitment without participation”, and the best way to encourage participation is through teamwork.
3. Quality measurement
Quality control should be based on facts and not on mere judgments. Defining the specifications to be completed and achieved, determining the control points, the elements or aspects to be measured, determining the means or systems to be used for the measurement, and training the people in charge of it, are crucial aspects to take into consideration.. The system and means to be used must comply with levels of accuracy and precision.
One of the fundamental tools for quality measurement lies in the monitoring and analysis of quality costs.
4. Correction of problems
It involves reaching the various root causes of the various inconveniences in order to overcome them, acting in such a way on the true causes of the problems and not on their symptoms or more immediate or superficial causes.
Knowing how to ask five or more times successively the "why? of each existing situation or problem, it allows us to reach the root cause and thereby provide a definitive solution to it. Great masters of quality like Imai, Ohno and Karatsu advise it, and the results are clearly visible; just look at the quality of Japanese products.
5. Quality Committee
The Quality issue is important enough, which is why it requires the existence of a committee specially created for that sole purpose, in order to monitor the implementation of the total quality management system, its subsequent development and the continuous improvement of processes. and, levels of quality and satisfaction achieved.
6. Training and education
Total quality begins and ends with education. When we talk about total quality we are talking about quality in all sectors and activities or processes of the company, for this reason, making said quality real implies yes or yes training all company personnel, including all managers. No matter what their hierarchical level or functional sector is, everyone must understand the meaning of quality, its importance, and how to make it a reality and improve it day by day.
Training is one of the fundamental bases to achieve total quality, and constitutes one of the tools and pillars of preventive action. Increasing the resources allocated to prevention, the costs of internal and external failures decrease more than proportionally. For this reason, training is of fundamental importance when managing quality.
7. Improvement objectives
Planning for continuous improvement accompanied by benchmarking activity allows setting new objectives to be achieved in terms of quality, productivity, costs, and delivery times. Improving quality means reducing waste, generating higher sales and increasing profitability. For this reason, the use of "inverse analysis" allows, starting from the profitability objectives, to know what quality levels must be achieved to make them feasible. The timeframes and resources necessary to achieve these objectives must then be established.
8. Prevention of defects
Training, like Poka Yoke, Negative Analysis and Statistical Process Control (SPC) are the fundamental tools for quality assurance. Acting preventively and not as a reaction to the emergence of problems is the fundamental issue when Total Quality Management is concerned. Ensuring quality by anticipating the events and adopting measures to avoid their occurrence, determining the factors that make up quality and controlling their compliance, allow to make fault-free processes and products feasible.
9. Rewards and recognition
Regarding prizes, these must be global in nature, in such a way as to avoid competitions between individuals or between groups. What matters is the proper functioning of the system as a whole and not just parts of it. When it comes to suggestions, rewarding those who produce the idea and not those who put it into practice, will lead to the latter not having a greater interest in the idea succeeding. On the other hand, if both the one who generates it and those who put it into practice are rewarded, an atmosphere of "win - win" is created. Those who have to implement it will do their best to make the ideas succeed, encouraging colleagues to generate ideas, since everyone will benefit from them.
10. Quality program procedures
Implement methods and tools conducive to preventing the occurrence of errors and failures. Give priority to "control at the source" and the use of Poka Yoke.
11. Growth with economic profitability
The costs incurred in prevention and evaluation, apart from being fixed, must be considered as investments. Increasing prevention implies fewer evaluation needs, but above all a significant drop in costs due to internal and external failures. As production increases, fixed costs per unit decrease, an increase that is driven by higher sales due to excellence in quality and lower prices.
A policy and planning focused on prevention activities generate notable increases in profitability. A very useful tool when developing prevention consists of the implementation of the Internal Control Matrix System.
12. Customer needs
True quality is only feasible when the needs and wishes of customers and consumers are taken into account. Designing and producing something that consumers do not need or value is lacking in quality.
To achieve quality is to take into account what the customer understands by quality for a certain product or service. Only in this way is the company in a position to generate true added value.
13. Planning process
Planning for quality, or taking quality into consideration in planning, is at the heart of this point. If quality must invade all areas, activities and processes of the organization, it is essential that it takes quality into account in each of the fundamental functions of the administrative process, the first of which is planning.
Planning conceived as the selection of missions and objectives, strategies, policies, programs, and procedures to achieve them; it must have a benchmark in quality. When it comes to quality objectives, ISO 9004 defines quality objectives as fundamental elements of quality, such as fitness for use, function, safety and reliability.
14. Strategic planning
Total quality is the step to excellence, and the latter is the strategic objective of any company that intends to be competitive and gain a position in the mind of the consumer public.
For these reasons, it is essential that quality is one of the central elements of strategic planning. Only when quality is part of the vision, mission, objectives, values and policies of the company, will it be possible to achieve an absolute commitment from the entire organization, its suppliers and distributors with Total Quality.
15. Culture of quality
The conduct of the managers, the company policy and the transcendent values of the organization must avoid contradictions that "torpedo" the strategic and operational plans and objectives of the company.
Having a culture of quality implies that the organization as a whole understands its fundamental importance for its survival and competitiveness. Achieving a culture of quality implies that all members of the company are truly and authentically committed to continuous improvement and the generation of added value for customers.
16. Total systems approach
Understanding, thinking and approaching the company as a system is the great secret to achieve total quality. Understanding that the whole exceeds the sum of the parts, and that a component or factor, be it human or material, is as good as the system is, are concepts that both managers and employees must understand and understand. The sum of numerous "star" employees will be of no use, if the conflicts between them or their particular way of being, generate lower results than that organization that adding individuals inclined to teamwork produces optimal results.
Nor can it be ignored that many times we can constantly change employees, suppliers or machines, and despite this not improve the results, because the system that generates the meager results continues without changes. Bad policies, planning errors, lack of trust between employees and managers, prevent improving operating results.
17. Communication of information
Effective and efficient information systems are essential when it comes to controlling, analyzing and improving quality, productivity and satisfaction levels. Dashboards, Andon, Visual Management, are some of the practical and creative elements available to keep all staff and managers aware of the operation of the processes.
18. Quality policies
They make the best management of the company in its search for excellence. Managers and leaders must be perfectly clear about where to go and how to go about it. Without clear and precise ideas, employees will not know what to expect. Clear and non-contradictory policies regarding relationships with suppliers, hiring of personnel, investment in training and coaching, and reward and punishment systems are essential to achieve total quality.
19. Mission and vision
Having a good definition of what the company does, and where it wants to be in the long term, serves to define the strategic objectives in terms of quality. Without a clear vision, leadership and the consequent support of followers are difficult. A high-value vision will serve to enhance the leader's inspiration and assertiveness.
20. Constancy and planning for competitiveness
Quality is designed and produced, it is not controlled. It is a way of affirming with fairness the crucial importance of planning and leaving elements that allow a standardization of both processes and products and services. Quality should never be the property of an individual, but of the organization. When quality depends on an individual, the organization will lose quality when it loses it. Quality should depend on the proper functioning of the system, and not on the capabilities of one or more individuals. This also makes us think of the organization and total quality as a system.
21. Methods of supervision
Monitoring methods and systems have radically changed. The groups tend to be self-directed, with which the supervisors can control a greater number of personnel, concentrate their efforts on being a facilitator and inspirer of the Quality Circles, and dedicate themselves to activities with a greater degree of creativity and innovation, in order to do so improve the quality of products and processes. Their behavior should stop being reactive, to give priority to the preventive and proactive approach.
22. Interaction between departments
The conjunction between the different departments is essential both when it comes to reducing costs and when it comes to improving response times and times. Better horizontal communication speeds up and facilitates the resolution of problems, also improving the management of processes.
The time has come to bring down the walls, allowing a true teamwork of the organization as a whole. There is no more room for "clans" or "tribes." The departments and their members play for a single team that is the company.
23. Control of suppliers
The practice of acquiring goods or services on the basis of the lowest price must be ended, it is necessary to evaluate the total cost, for which the quality of the products, medium and long-term improvement plans, participation of suppliers in the designs of products, services and processes, the frequencies and volumes of deliveries, among others.
Having first-rate suppliers reduces inspection costs, as content, quality and quantity verifications are not necessary, and supplies and parts may be disappointed directly in the assembly or production lines.
24. Quality Audit
The Operational and Internal Audits must focus their efforts on improving the quality of the organization as a whole, for which they will be in charge of controlling compliance with the established standards, as well as the established quality policies.
It will do no good simply to avoid embezzlement, if customers are being lost to poor service or disappointing levels of satisfaction. Losing customers means losing the main capital of the company, losing sales and future customers (due to negative word of mouth). It should never be forgotten that the cost of getting a new customer outweighs the cost of keeping a current one.
25. Process control
Defining standards, evaluating compliance with them, and planning their subsequent improvement are the distinctive characteristics of process control. Statistical Process Control is the fundamental weapon, and therefore the understanding of it by managers and employees is crucial. One might wonder how many companies have Statistical Process Control implemented today.
26. Product design
Concentrating the effort at the time of designing the product or service has consequences and implications of great magnitude in the subsequent costs of preparation and processing. Increasing time and resources in this work, generates significant subsequent reductions in costs and failures.
27. Commitment to continuous improvement
The application of the Plan-Perform-Evaluate and Act (PREA) stages constitute the essence of the improvement process established by the Kaizen System and Philosophy. Continuous improvement is one of the fundamental pillars of "Lean Production", which allows a continuous reduction of waste (doffs).
28. Creativity and Innovation
Make creativity and innovation permanent sources of improvement in products, services and processes. The organization must make creativity a way to solve and prevent problems, satisfy new needs and requirements of internal and external customers.
For these reasons, management must remove obstacles and barriers to creativity and innovation, creating an environment conducive to their fertilization and development.
29. Ethics as a key and determining factor
Without ethics there is no quality. An authentic quality in services and products requires the highest ethical level on the part of managers and employees. Business ethics and work ethic is what is observed as fundamental factors in companies of excellence.
Respect for employees, consumers, and the community are the foundations on which companies that generate high added value are built in every sense of the term.
30. Recognize the factors of organizational behavior
Quality requires leadership, ethics, training and planning among other key factors. But failure to recognize in time the psychological, sociological, political, anthropological and psychosocial factors to which human relationships and behaviors are exposed will make any attempt to achieve Total Quality fail. It is here where Organizational Development and correct group dynamics come to life and are vitally important for the future of the company.
Conclusions
There is no quality without ethics. Ethics is the basis of quality. The ethical commitment leads the entrepreneurs who adopt it to constantly seek to generate the highest quality in the work environment for their employees and workers, the highest quality in products and services for their clients and consumers, and the highest quality for the community.
Apart from the ethical question, the same healthy selfishness that Adam Smith spoke about must lead entrepreneurs within a rational judgment to seek the highest total quality in order to increase their profits, since through quality they generate less waste, increase the satisfaction of its staff and thus increase its productivity levels, increase the satisfaction of customers and users, generating at the same time and thanks to all this a strong competitive advantage for the company and its brands.
From the aforementioned it clearly emerges that ethics is profitable for the company, since it mobilizes all its human components in the search for excellence, which is supported by the philosophy of continuous improvement.
If each company seeks continuous improvement of its products and processes, improving their quality, reducing costs, and increasing productivity, it contributes not only to its own competitive capacity, but also generates an area of economic growth in synergy with other companies., which is sustained in any healthy economy by the increase in its productivity levels.
Total quality is something that should not only matter to the individual entrepreneur, it should be the object of interest by business chambers, universities, governments, politicians, consumers, and even journalism. Quality is the basis of productivity, and this is the true engine of economic development, something that is above mere economic growth. This is how countries such as Japan or the United States have understood and understood it, where total quality is a matter of State.
Bibliography
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