Quality Management

Basics and Overviews About Quality Management includes many links about basics and overviews of quality management. Benchmarking is the use of standard measurements in a service or industry for comparison to other organizations in order to gain perspective on organizational performance. Continuous Improvement, in regard to organizational quality and performance, focuses on improving customer satisfaction through continuous and incremental improvements to processes, including by removing unnecessary activities and variations. Failure Mode and Effects Analysis is an approach that helps identify and prioritize potential equipment and process failures. ISO9000 is an internationally recognized standard of quality, and includes guidelines to accomplish the ISO9000 quality standard. Organizations can be optionally audited to earn ISO9000 certification. Lean Management is a process of maximizing customer value while reducing waste. Any activity or process that consumes resources, adds cost or time without creating value becomes the target for elimination. Total Quality Improvement (TQM) is a set of management practices throughout the organization, geared to ensure the organization consistently meets or exceeds customer requirements. TQM places strong focus on process measurement and controls as means of continuous improvement. Six Sigma is a quality management initiative that takes a very data-driven, methodological approach to eliminating defects with the aim to reach six standard deviations from the desired target of quality. Six standard deviations means 3.4 defects per million.

Total Quality Management (TQM)

TQM is a set of management practices throughout the organization, geared to ensure the organization consistently meets or exceeds customer requirements. TQM places strong focus on process measurement and controls as means of continuous improvement. Before reading more about TQM, it might be helpful to quickly review the major forms of quality management in an organization. These are briefly described at the top of the Quality Management topic.

7 Important Principles of Total Quality Management

Total Quality Management (TQM) is an approach that organizations use to improve their internal processes and increase customer satisfaction. When it is properly implemented, this style of management can lead to decreased costs related to corrective or preventative maintenance, better overall performance, and an increased number of happy and loyal customers. However, TQM is not something that happens overnight. While there are a number of software solutions that will help organizations quickly start to implement a quality management system, there are some underlying philosophies that the company must integrate throughout every department of the company and at every level of management. Whatever other resources you use, you should adopt these seven important principles of Total Quality Management as a foundation for all your activities.

1. Quality can and must be managed

Many companies have wallowed in a repetitive cycle of chaos and customer complaints. They believe that their operations are simply too large to effectively manage the level of quality. The first step in the TQM process, then, is to realize there is a problem and that it can be controlled.

2. Processes, not people, are the problem

If your process is causing problems, it wont matter how many times you hire new employees or how many training sessions you put them through. Correct the process and then train your people on these new procedures.

3. Dont treat symptoms, look for the cure

If you just patch over the underlying problems in the process, you will never be able to fully reach your potential. If, for example, your shipping department is falling behind, you may find that it is because of holdups in manufacturing. Go for the source to correct the problem.

4. Every employee is responsible for quality

Everyone in the company, from the workers on the line to the upper management, must realize that they have an important part to play in ensuring high levels of quality in their products and services. Everyone has a customer to delight, and they must all step up and take responsibility for them.

5. Quality must be measurable

A quality management system is only effective when you can quantify the results. You need to see how the process is implemented and if it is having the desired effect. This will help you set your goals for the future and ensure that every department is working toward the same result.

6. Quality improvements must be continuous

Total Quality Management is not something that can be done once and then forgotten. Its not a management phase that will end after a problem has been corrected. Real improvements must occur frequently and continually in order to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty.

7. Quality is a long-term investment

Quality management is not a quick fix. You can purchase QMS software that will help you get things started, but you should understand that real results wont occur immediately. TQM is a long-term investment, and it is designed to help you find longterm success. Before you start looking for any kind of quality management software, it is important to make sure you are capable of implementing these fundamental principles throughout the company. This kind of management style can be a huge culture change in some companies, and sometimes the shift can come with some growing pains, but if you build on a foundation of quality principles, you will be equipped to make this change and start working toward real long-term success.

What is Quality?
The primary dimensions of product quality include:

Performance Features Reliability Conformance Durability Serviceability Aesthetics Perceived Quality

Increasingly, however, service quality is attracting equal or more attention.

Responsiveness Reliability Accuracy Knowledge of Employees Courtesy Consistency Speed

These listed dimensions of product and service quality are, in a broad sense, generic to most situations. However, every business is unique, and if customer satisfaction measurements are to be meaningful, expectations should be phrased in the language of customers for each distinct market segment. Also, some needs are more critical than others and it is wise to determine the relative importance of each need. After measuring satisfaction levels, emphasis can

then be placed on improving performance in areas important to the customer but where the organization may be lacking in comparison to the quality delivered by competitors.

Acheiving Continuous Quality Improvement

Continuous quality improvement begins by identifying customer expectations for all key "moments of truth" - the critical interactions customers have with the organization. This can include contact with, for example, internal support groups, collection individuals, sales representatives, management, or direct service providers. The best way to understand customer expectations is to listen to customers using qualitative research techniques. This usually requires skillful probing by someone practiced in customer satisfaction measurement. After identifying expectations, customer satisfaction can readily be measured. However, this requires the customer to answer specific questions about how he or she feels about the company's performance. This is why it is so important to capture their interest and build the credibility needed to gain their cooperation. The task is made considerably easier by speaking the customer's language and presenting only issues that are truly significant.

Why Quality Must be Measured

More and more, quality is being measured. Companies are coming to the conclusion that if they can measure it, they can manage it and, consequently, can improve it. The best performing organizations are allowing customer expectations to drive their quality initiative. They recognize customers define quality by judging them in relation to competitors. Organizations that constantly measure themselves in relation to competitors (Benchmarking) are able to quickly capitalize on their emerging strengths and address weaknesses before they become problems.

Why Include Customers of Competitors

The rationale for including non-customer (customers of competitors) benchmarking is that without the non-customer data customer satisfaction levels are arbitrary. Both sets of data allow an organization to exploit its strengths, and put initiatives in place to narrow and eliminate any gaps between expectations and performance.

In fact, the best performing organizations benchmark themselves against:

their best competitor the industry average a world class supplier in a similar industry

Future measurements permit the organization to objectively assess how well the initiatives are working.

How Exit Interviews Can Translate into Huge Profit Increases

By measuring only customer satisfaction levels, organizations miss former customers who have left ... because they no longer had the need for, or were unhappy with the products or services being offered. Measuring customer retention, on the other hand, relates directly to the bottom line. Long term customers spend more, refer new clients and are less costly to do business with. Ironically, past customers present every company with an opportunity. They can tell the organization exactly what parts of the business to fix in order to reduce the number of customers at risk. This improves customer retention and, subsequently, profitability. An average organization loses about 15% of its customers every year. But if this can be reduced to 10%, bottom line profits improve 35% to 85%. Finding out why customers leave can often be difficult since the majority of unhappy customers don't complain, they simply quit. Exit interviews solve this problem.