One of the major problems is that we have not paid sufficient attention to the real source of the quality, people. Rarely in my experience is the solution to a product-based fault, either hardware or software, outside the realms or the skills of the people employed by the company. My main job in problem solving has been to provide the means of communication, getting the right people together or at times acting as a messenger boy where communication has completely broken down. If quality is to retain the level of attention and importance it is currently receiving we need to be realistic about the environment we work in and how we can bring about change within that organisation.
Firstly there is a need to understand the organisation within which you work and where the company stands in its development. Most organisations will start by being led by a strong forceful character who expects and gets his own way, who is always right even when he is wrong and has an uncanny instinct for survival. If he or she is no longer around, the culture created will still be remembered and form part of the folk law and affect attitudes within the company. Without this sort of character the company would not have grown but there comes a time when this type of control is no longer possible or appropriate. The size of the company may have outgrown the ability of the person to control or he may have left or retired or just pressures from within the organisation may have forced him to change. One company I recently worked with had just this problem where many of the managers were still seeking the autocratic approach they had grown up with.
The second stage of development is where the organisation has become bureaucratic and built rules and procedures to control departments and individuals. Here the demarcation lines between departments are more clearly defined and people are more accountable for their actions. This is often the time when Quality Systems such as ISO 9000 are built and thrive. These procedures which have helped the company to survive may ultimately be the cause of its failure, the bureaucracy and red tape stifling innovation and preventing change and improvement.
The third stage is a democratic stage where people feel secure and confident and the company structure and procedures provide a basic framework within which individuals can work and impose their own personal style. Managers are less protective of their empire and barriers between departments are more easily crossed. This is the stage that correlates best with the teaching of the Quality Gurus and Total Quality Management.
This is the background against which any person involved in quality who wants to make improvements has to survive and succeed. Some of the important tools to the Quality Manager such as audits, conformance checks, statistics and quality costs are often used without consideration as to whether it is the right way or the time for the people involved. Within each of these subjects there is a temptation to overlook the people and their ability to cause mayhem in a theoretically perfect system. I remember well an occasion when an internal audit prior to a customer assessment found over one hundred deficiencies. It was obvious the division had problems before the audit, the audit just consumed time and tied up people whose time could be better spent. The only department that did well in the customer assessment was the Quality Audit section but they won few friends and no lasting improvements. In recent months I have read several articles on Total Quality, which have developed the idea of internal customers, describing it as a process of controlling inputs and outputs as if the people involved once programmed would turn out a quality product each time, it is not that simple and will result in failure.
Getting to know and understand the organisation will take time but from the first meeting you will need to be making judgements as to who is important to you. You will need people at all levels who are at the extremes, those who are in favour of change and are seeking a "Knight in shining armour" to lead them forward, they provide a testing ground for your thoughts and ideas and a safe haven when the going gets tough, but beware of ideas too readily accepted. You also need the opposite extreme the people you expect to fight the change you seek, you need to understand their view, they may be right. The moaners and groaners, the silent people who never seem to hold a view, these are likely to remain misfits but they often provide gems, although the right course may be in the opposite direction. You will need people at all levels from the boardroom to the most junior employee. Revolution starts with belief and a small group of people.
The academics talk of the seven steps to Total Quality, I prefer to think of them as the thousand and one steps towards quality. Not all steps will be forward, for example you may increase inspection in an area, when your long-term objective is to eliminate all inspection, or agree to a new standard which has only minor improvements. Lots of small changes soon add up and are easier to achieve. It is essential that people who make improvements no matter how small are encouraged and not buried in a plethora of new suggestions. Do not expect the changes introduced to follow a nice smooth curve, constant change is something you see from the top of an ivory tower. At the bottom the catastrophe theorem applies where an event will cause sudden and a significant amount of change in a short period. For example a new manager, the start of a new project or when something goes wrong. Learn to spot these opportunities to get the maximum possible improvement.
You will need to be seen to do something, not just talk about it, so what do you do and when. That will depend a lot on the organisation and what it perceives to be its quality problems. Doodle with the pie chart, how much time do you spend in the four categories, fire fighting, administration, maintenance and improvement.
In my younger days I would have analysed the problem and made a judgement on its importance to the company. Trivial or complete misunderstandings of the situation would have been quickly discarded. This alienated people from me, I had failed to do anything about something they considered important, I had belittled them. Solving lots of these minor problems and considering each important will help to get people marketing quality for you by telling others of the improvements that are happening. Lead by example but beware of becoming the chief fire fighter. Your job is to get as many members of the company believing in their ability to solve problems and make improvements as possible. You will find a few major problems, probably of a technical nature, it is essential that on these occasions leadership comes from the top through the direct lines of management. You may be a part of the team, you certainly need to know what is happening but make sure ownership is in the right place. Support, help, be ready to pick up the pieces and get corrective action into the system but don't take over.
Writing procedures is one of the main maintenance activities. The procedures for the company must have quality built into them, not a separate chapter or volume. Ownership for all aspects of quality must be with the department managers. Realistically, despite all the documentation, Quality is still dependent on the skill and expertise of the people. Procedure writing is often seen as an improvement not a maintenance activity, but it is not, it can only retain the status quo. People discussing new ways of working or working in accordance with the procedures or training based on the procedures should prevent problems but rarely will the documenting of the procedure prevent anything. People will still ask or tell others how to do something and if you send them off to read the procedure they will still come back and ask "but what if this" or "do I really need to, if I am just", they want and need the personal involvement in what they are doing. The procedures are essential to a developing organisation or one that has to demonstrate to a third party that they have a system, but so often the documents produced just become dust collectors and door stops. Hopefully Information Technology systems will make it easier to demonstrate that quality is inherent in the system and reduce some of the bureaucracy.
The right tools and equipment for the job must be a prime consideration and it is important that the people who will use the equipment are involved in the selection. In one manufacturing area I was helping improve, the operators were using soldering iron bits that were worn out. The company culture was concerned with saving money and the soldering bits were locked in the charge-hands drawers and the issue carefully controlled. This was soon changed but the real point of the story is that in the corner was a wave soldering machine, two years old and never used. The management and engineering team had worked hard to obtain approval for the purchase, carefully studying the market but totally forgetting to involve or seek the views of the people who were going to use the equipment. The machine stood as a permanent example of the "management's" wastefulness. The machine was sold for peanuts and the loss far exceeded the saving being made on soldering bits, even without considering printed circuit board reliability.
Working with suppliers, Just-In-Time, Simultaneous Engineering what ever you do to prevent quality problems remember to encourage and reward suggestions and you may be surprised at the clever innovations presented. Marketing quality as a subject I keep to a minimum and only do for a specific purpose, avoid the oversell and staleness that can result. When you first join the company you will need to let people know how you see quality, what the plan is and the aims. Everyone in the organisation needs to know and this is an excellent opportunity to demonstrate the advantages of good communication.
The requirement specification for my latest car was that it must be
red (the wife's input) and for me that it must be a popular British make,
so all the faults have been found by others. We chose one that had an extra
two inches in the back for the children. In retrospect I should have undertaken
a product audit on the plastic mouldings as they all broke. For the service
industry such as hotels the requirement may be just stated as the duration
of the stay, number of beds and meals. In the examples the quality of the
product is implied not stated, this applies equally to technical products.
Your company is the experts and to expect the customer to have the knowledge
to fully define the requirements is wrong. There may be a stage of discussion
with the customer where the requirement is clarified and documented but
this will only cover the major points otherwise the profit would disappear
in the writing of the requirement. For mass production products you will
need to do customer research. Whichever way you choose to identify the
implied requirements remember to listen, the customer normally starts off
on your side. Finally do not forget to make the product look good, first
impressions count.
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Quality versus People? I do not believe it is, people want to do things right, if there is a conflict it is people v people. In conclusion if you seek quality then people are the key to success or failure. The owner, the manager, the worker, the customer, everyone contributes, listen and react to them and success will follow. Remember People First.
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