World Quality Day 2021.Theme Sustainability: improving our products, people and planet.

What is the „World Quality Day” about?

World Quality Day is celebrated annually on the second Thursday in November. The Chartered Quality Institute (CQI) sets the theme each year.

According to CQI, World Quality Day is an opportunity to bring the importance of quality and its added value into the spotlight.

But quality is not the only focus on 11.11.2021. The entire week (“World Quality Week”) or the entire month of November (“Quality Month”) is dedicated to quality.

This is a good occasion to focus on quality in your own immediate environment, to get to grips with the topic of quality and to educate yourself. If you are still looking for inspiration: many posts and webinars can be found online with the hashtag #WQW21.

Theme of this year’s World Quality Day

The theme of World Quality Day this year is: “Sustainability: improving our products, people and planet”. The aim is to highlight the role of quality in sustainable business success and its impact on environmental, social and governance issues.

In other words, this year we are focusing on sustainable quality and taking a special look at three aspects: “products, people and planet”.

• Products: Aiming for high quality in the production of products enables companies to act in a cost-saving way. Defective products are an unnecessary cost trap and damage customer satisfaction.
• People: For many manufacturing companies it is a challenge to motivate the shop floor staff. Transparency and quality awareness often ensure that employees identify better with their tasks. In combination with a working environment that inspires employees and triggers commitment and active participation, this is a powerful competitive advantage.
• Planet: In order to implement sustainability in the sense of environmental awareness, waste must be reduced and work must be done on continuous quality improvement. In short, high quality saves resources.

Relationship between quality and sustainability

Sustainability has two meanings:

• For one, the long-term preservation of the organisation.
• Secondly, the responsible, resource-conscious use of the environment. 

Quality management ensures that these requirements of efficient use of resources are met.

Thus, quality and sustainability go hand in hand. With a sustainable quality management system (SQMS), the focus is on  continuous improvement. A long-term and holistic orientation is important here.

These initiatives you can take in your company

Companies can now use World Quality Day as an impulse to take measures to ensure greater quality awareness.

This starts with small activities such as a video message to employees and goes all the way to larger projects such as the implementation of digital tools that support employees in their daily work. In addition, create incentives for employees to deal with the issue of quality.

We have compiled a small list of ideas for you with which you can achieve a higher quality awareness:

• Offer training and education. This can be implemented in many formats. For example, a one-day workshop or an online course.
• A personal message to all staff. Here, too, many formats are possible – for example, a video message. There are no limits to creativity.
• Offer a “Lunch & Learn” event. Pick up a topic that is currently important for your company and share your knowledge in a compact “Lunch & Learn” format. 
• And especially important: employee recognition. Now is a good time to bring successful employees from the past year into the spotlight!

The result of such measures is that employees are supported in their daily work. In the long run, employees can identify better with their tasks and have a higher intrinsic motivation to strive for quality.

Excursus on energy management

The topic of sustainability does not stop at industrial companies. In this context, dealing with climate neutrality and other issues is not only a competitive advantage; legal regulations also oblige companies to take a closer look at resource efficiency.

New legal requirements, such as the Supply Chain Act, oblige companies with more than 3,000 employees to determine what human rights and environmental risks exist in their operations and with their suppliers and, if in doubt, to take corrective action.

SO 50001 also requires companies to record and analyse energy flows and the associated energy sources, and to derive ideas for improvement on this basis.

Testify in use for digital energy management

Conclusion

World Quality Day is a good occasion to address quality awareness in your own environment or company. Take initiatives to sensitise your employees to quality and to create a sustainable approach to quality.

What you should specifically take away from the theme “Quality and Sustainability” of this year’s World Quality Day is the following: Quality and sustainability are closely intertwined! As sustainability plays an increasingly important role in companies, you should use the effective use of quality as a way to save resources.