| Memo: Quality at Work
Edition: Final
Quality - it is one of the
most frequent claims in advertising. Comb the
ads of any newspaper or magazine, or spend some
time perusing radio and television spots, and
it will amaze you how often the word is used.
Why this emphasis? Because advertisers know that
quality is one of the things consumers prize most.
It is as lofty and endearing a commodity as motherhood
and apple pie. Quality, therefore, makes a warm
and fuzzy buzzword, like "free."
But if quality is so important, why are so many
consumers unhappy with the products and services
they purchase? And if companies are as committed
to quality as their ads would have us believe,
why are so many of them having trouble competing
and delivering quality at low prices?
There are a couple of reasons. First, not every
product that touts quality actually delivers it.
Second, even among the companies that try to deliver
quality, many focus on quality with a little q.
MCS is introducing to Nigeria quality with a Big
Q. There is a huge difference.
Companies that embrace the Big Q
consistently keep their customers in the cross
hairs. Their goal is to satisfy customers, not
just for the moment, but to anticipate their future
needs and prepare to satisfy them. Big Q companies
relentlessly pursue continuous improvement in
their operations by reducing mistakes, breakdowns,
delays and defects. They drive for efficiency
and effectiveness.
When quality is so passionately pursued, an explosion
of good things occur. Quality guru W. Edwards
Deming calls it the chain reaction: "Focus
on quality, productivity goes up, cost goes down,
customers are more satisfied, and more jobs are
provided."
Many companies can brag of accomplishing these
aims from time to time. Far fewer companies can
claim truthfully to strike these targets and meet
these objectives with any degree of consistency.
And with the Big Q, consistency
is the key.
The Big Q really is a nickname
for the concept of Three Dimensional Total Quality
Management. It is that concept that this column
will explore. It's a way of life that global competition
is forcing more and more companies to examine
and adopt simply in order to survive.
Total Quality is not a brand new idea, having
evolved over the past four decades. This management
philosophy can be traced to elders like Deming,
J. M. Juran and Carou Ishakawa. But the Big Q
is often mistaken for its younger sister, little
q. It is rare nowadays to find a company that
does not have some kind of quality component.
But in Three Dimensional Total Quality companies
(3DQ for short), quality is not assigned to a
few self-important product investigators, nor
is it one department's special franchise. In 3DQ
companies, quality is the business of every single
employee.
Here is an example of the difference:
Company A manufactures table lamps. It uses a
quality control method to ensure that shoddy lamps
do not reach its customers. At the end of the
production process, just before the lamps are
prepared for shipping, quality inspectors sort
out the inferior products from the lot.
The good lamps head for the marketplace. The
defective lamps are diverted to a rework department,
where they are broken down. The salvageable components
of the defective lamps are used to make other
lamps. Let us say that of the 100 lamps that are
made, 87 are good and 13 do not make the grade.
Company B also manufactures table lamps. It is
a 3DQ company. Its approach to
quality is to focus not on the end product -the
lamps - but to monitor the system, or process,
by which the lamps are made. Company B keeps data
that allow it to track the manufacturing process
and to pinpoint where, along the way, problems
are developing. This kind of tracking also enables
the company to determine what causes problems
more quickly and accurately.
Workers at Company B are empowered to speak up
when they spot things that compromise quality.
In fact, workers have the power to stop the production
line. Indeed, they may be rewarded for doing so
to make improvements in the process. For every
100 lamps that are made by Company B, 98 make
the grade. Company B does not have quality control
inspectors, nor a rework department, nor is it
burdened with the costs associated with each.
Production downtime is practically unheard of.
You can imagine that breaking with the past and
committing to 3 Dimensional Total Quality (3DQ)
is a radical change for many companies. The transition
can be tough, frightening and imperiled by internal
company politics. Some of the basic tenets of
Total Quality - empowering the workers, for example
- are absolutely sacrilegious to the established
cultures of many companies.
Submitted by Afolabi
Imoukhuede, Managing Consultant, MCS
Consulting Limited Ikoyi, Lagos
aimoukhuede@mcsworldgrp.com
'3 Dimensional
Quality' Is The Smartest Way To Do Business
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