Quality Foundations



This section shares some of the classical and modern quality philosophies by the old and new fathers of quality…Crosby, Feigenbaum, Deming, Juran, Edwards, Ishikawa, Shingo, Taguchi, Shewhart, Shainin, Peters, Covey, Maxwell, etc. Old or new these principles below are timeless because they follow good common sense and logical application to any business. I recall from years ago when I was Education Chair for the ASQ in Boston, we had a speaker visit to discuss the ISO Certification Quality Program recently undertaken in their law firm. Most of the room were manufacturing folks and were captivated by this use of a Quality System. Many wondered why....and it may surprise you to learn that at that time it was common for manual law firm filing systems to lose or misfile up to 10% of all documents stored. I later found this rate is similar in medical record storage. A 10% defect rate in any process is a good cause to drive improvement.
                    - TH


Phillip Crosby - 14 Steps to Improvement Program Success

1. Management Commitment - Communicate need for program and drive support. Establish Quality Policy with link to customer needs.

2. Quality Improvement Teams - Bring together representatives from each department, ideally dept heads for authority and support. Establish roles and tools necessary for the program.

3. Quality Measurement - Evaluate where in organization quality measurement would be useful. Do not restrict this to manufacturing or processes only. Nearly every function can be measured in some way.

4. Cost of Quality Evaluation - Calculate cost of defects and detecting defects. 1st pass calculated using obvious areas is usually only 1/3rd of true cost to business.

5. Quality Awareness - Communicate what poor quality is costing the company, and how it affects all employees and customers. Establish vision for why quality improvement is necessary.

6. Corrective Action - Drive problems to the surface with interviews and team meetings. Find out what needs to be fixed.

7. Establish Committee to drive Quality Improvement - Team that designs the program for implementation, and establishes prioritization and measures for progress.

8. Management Training - Formal orientation for all levels, recognizing value and focus of program.

9. Quality Day - Communicate the program to whole organization in one day. Establishes new attitude and expectations.

10. Goal Setting - establish short term and long term goals. Be specific and measurable.

11. Remove Barriers to Quality - Find out what prevents error free work from being performed. Ask the people performing the work directly.

12. Recognition! - Establish reward programs and communicate successes to the whole organization.

13. Quality Council - Quality team leaders meet regularly to share results and successes. It bonds team members and reinforces the program's goals.

14. Continuous Improvement - Repeat program every 12-18 months to drive greater levels of quality. Employee hiring and turnover alone requires this reinforcement, as well establishing a culture of quality.

 


This is a continuing work...more to come soon!