A plea for more quality awareness.
To be honest, when I talk to my network about quality, it’s more or less a comparison of regulatory standards and process routines that need to be documented, measured and recorded. In the spotlight perspective, familiar buzzwords such as compliance, Kanban, lean, 5S and many more are thrown on the table without any concrete meaning behind them. The general question of the importance of process quality and usability is usually not on the agenda.
Compliance – the cornerstone of all buzzwords.
Well, compliance is not the only buzzword with a big impact on process quality, but it does include a lot of regulatory frameworks that need to be considered. At the very least, there are industry standards and general process regulations such as ISO 9001:2015 that influence the requirements and ensure that a quality management system is implemented. In addition, there are general data protection, occupational health and safety and anti-discrimination rules, anti-corruption and fire safety guidelines, product warranty and returns process obligations. This is simply self-initiated rules and framework conditions that must be observed and verified within a specific policy.
In the end, compliance covers all these topics in one term.
Quality is many things, but not a coincidence.
In addition to the keyword compliance, there are many other aspects to quality. Specifically, quality generally means some kind of measurement, scaling and evaluation of a wide range of parameters based on individual threshold values. The core problem is that there is no general or overarching definition of what quality is. So if quality means providing a durable and fully functional piece of technology without damage, then the process of measuring for quality involves a wide variety of tests that need to be performed. If quality is just the term for undamaged product shells, the testing routine is quite simple. So ultimately it comes down to a vertically specific definition of common quality parameters and an entrepreneurial awareness of quality that can be a unique selling point in the sales process.
Why quality is the key to success.
There are two main aspects of how B2B customers make a decision in favor of a particular provider: One universal aspect is the price of a product or service. Most companies are highly competitive and offering the cheapest goods is one way to appeal to the market and gain market share. The second aspect for the decision is the quality of the products and services. So if you have a situation where the price is the same, you go for the higher quality. If the quality is the same, you choose the lower price. It follows that price is a completely objective and easily comparable value and is ultimately more or less a question of “total cost of ownership” within a given observation period. Quality, on the other hand, is a very flexible concept that encompasses a range of parameters that cannot usually be easily matched and compared between products and services from different providers. So what does this mean?
When you are in strong competition with other suppliers and talking about business opportunities, the first instinct is to lower the prices of your products. This could be achieved by buying cheaper raw materials, improving and optimizing the production process or reducing the time of supply chain cycles. Have you ever thought that improving process quality and reducing time spent in supply chain processes could be achieved through digital quality and process management solutions? In order to reduce the cost and price of your products, the quality of your processes is one of the most important aspects to consider. Always remember that identifying weaknesses and bottlenecks within your processes is only possible through detailed and structured data collection and data insight through business intelligence. Data-driven decisions are the key to improving processes and reducing cost factors.
Quality is a profit center.
It reduces:
- Errors, defects and deviations
- Total costs
- Returned goods
- Customer complaints
- Stress for owners and management
- Reduction in legal costs
- Employee turnover
And also increases:
- Turnover
- Profit
- Capacities
- Customer satisfaction
- Market share
- Competitive advantage
- Employee satisfaction
As a conclusion from the previous lesson, we can take away that product quality itself is one of two main aspects to be successful. For the second main aspect, it is at least an essential tool to lower costs and reduce the prices of goods and services sold. This is the reason why quality is the most important criterion for success.
“Quality should be a mindset or a methodology. It could be the lighter side of the same coin, where increasing efficiency and reducing costs are no longer enough to win in the market. “
Another aspect of how you can win in the market is agility in response to changing environments and legal frameworks. Only if your quality and process management allows for agile change processes will you be able to fill the niches opened up by new customer requirements, new regulations or changing market dynamics. We all have to accept that quality is more or less what we would expect in a perfect world. Therefore, a company-wide quality standard and a continuous “change” mindset is essential for success!
“Always deliver more than expected.”
Larry Page, Co-Founder of Google
Furthermore, quality is a relevant criterion in each individual process and part of the bigger picture of how the strategy is aligned with specific activities and how specific activities generate benefits for the company’s goals and specific results. Without concrete quality objectives for products, processes and services and a shared quality awareness within the company, companies are not in a position to withstand the dynamics of market and environmental changes.
In addition to all these aspects, there is another relevant topic to discuss when thinking about quality awareness. Isn’t it a kind of given that the quality of products and services rises and falls with the accuracy of employees? The more motivated they are, the more they feel valued and recognized, the more likely it is that the quality culture and level of trust will increase.
Why a fundamental quality culture is important for performance and output.
Quality culture is the core for all quality-related tasks and tools. If there is no definition of quality culture within an organization, it is more or less impossible to keep this fragile quality system stable. If you have not activated and implemented a quality culture, all your processes and tools become undefined, disconnected, invisible or unmeasurable.
So how do you measure the quality of products, services and processes?
There are some general product quality criteria that can obviously be measured by various simple control types or specific control functions, some of which I would like to list below:
- Photo documentation of the condition of the goods
- Measurement of dimensions
- Logical checks (criterion XY fulfilled: yes / no)
- Numerical measurements (setpoint, upper & lower limit values, warning values)
- Functional tests (passed / failed)
- Stress tests
In addition to these standard inspection types for product quality, there are many other aspects that can be measured and evaluated from a process quality perspective, e.g:
- Duration of the work processes
- Time required for processes
- Calculation processes
- Data exchange & data verification
- Feedback & evaluation processes
- Audits
It is very important to know about the importance of all these quality measurements and their influence on a company’s quality awareness. Whenever a process is not reviewed and documented in detail, a lack of process insight can prevent companies from making the right decisions in time or even prevent decision makers from doing the right things far too late. When it comes to quality, everything adds up to a big picture and it is absolutely necessary to track all quality-related information and benefit from data-driven decisions through business intelligence insights on structured data.
How do you implement quality assurance measures for products, services and processes?
There is a simple rule that applies to all digital transformation projects in order to achieve efficiency gains and process excellence. Keep it simple and stupid! Well, it sounds old-fashioned, but in fact, every project that ends up being classified as failed or unsuccessful has somehow violated this rule. If you look at the individual steps involved in implementing digital quality assurance, it becomes clear that at each step there is always a simple and a complex way to build and implement a process. It is one of the unspoken secrets in IT projects that the process requirements and functional descriptions result from internal and external consulting services. Specifically, this means that a consultant who is billed for their dedicated service expertise in Time & Material will track all feature requirements from the client’s business and management team wish list. Could anyone agree that not all bullet points on a feature wish list are helpful in keeping a project simple and stupid?
Conclusion
Considering the previous points “quality culture”, “quality measurement” and “quality system implementation”, there is a wide variety of hard and soft facts that influence “QUALITY”.
I really recommend to stop “cherry-picking” in this context and start thinking big. The overall goal should be nothing less than winning the market and reducing operational risks. It is not enough to meet quality standards, be compliant or design processes for continuous improvement. Quality management is your key to success and your unique selling point compared to your competitors.
