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"Help - I've been assigned to start a quality program from scratch - but where do I start?"

There is no correct answer to the question but there are methodologies or combinations of disciplines that make sense and work for businesses.

Click here for brief overview of quality system complexity.

Before you implement a quality program, it is critical that you define the products or services that you provide. If you have an existing system then a performance gap analysis will provide insights to your culture and its influence on the activities of your business.

Keep in mind that you need to acknowledge the value of personal input if you hope to achieve sustainable improvement. System implementation and integration have a direct affect on improvement and the differences in agendas and objectives of employees and management are common deterrents to achieving a quality program that continuously improves. Unless everyone is reading from the same page it will be difficult to attain process consistency and system improvement - everyone must agree on what needs to be accomplished.

Fostering and maintaining open communications are critical to establish a quality program and to achieve continuous improvement of the management system. Employees must be aware they are responsible and accountable for various business processes and activities.

Some simple rules of thumb:
Avoid duplication of system documentation and efforts;
Have cohesive systems that are logical and easily comprehended by system users;
Make sure system differences are transparent or seamless to the user and are characterized by activity, progress and transition.

Fail - Maintain - Succeed - only a few will ever use the quality improvement initiative as anything more than another marketing tool. Don't let your initiative gather dust because it is not communicated on an ongoing basis. In an orchestra, the musicians are not there to play solo, they are there to support each other! A system must have an aim and the development and statement of the aim allows the people within the system to understand what they are working toward.

More of what goes on within organizations involves the complex social interaction of many people rather than simply the manipulation of physical assets. Organizations are seen as complex and adaptive social systems that operate technical systems and processes to meet Customer requirements. Personnel selection and development as well as organization design are important for helping a complex and adaptive system continuously improve.

Ask yourself a couple of simple questions to reveal your culture: "Do your employees say they work for or with their managers?" "Are your suppliers called vendors or partners?"

It may be more important for you to determine what quality program you want to use rather than trying to determine what you need to use. If the program doesn't inspire you then how will it work for you over the next 10 years?

Tampering creates variation and changing quality approaches frequently causes an organization to lose momentum and fail or just maintain the status quo. The key to understanding the performance and health of an organization and its processes rests with the selection and use of metrics.

If you don't measure it you can't improve it!

A well designed set of metrics must provide perspectives about:

...Customers
The voice of the Customer is not the organization's interpretation of what the Customer is saying - the Customer perspective is either satisfied or unsatisfied. The voice of the Customer is heard using surveys, focus groups and a wide variety of other listening posts.

...Employees
The voice of the employee is not the organization's interpretation of what the employee is saying - it is heard using surveys, focus groups and a wide variety of other listening posts.

...Suppliers
This measurement is often overlooked or delegated to a spoke of the organization that is at a level much lower than senior management. In many organizations the Supplier represents a significant dollar percentage of revenue.

...the Organization
These measurements focus on how efficiently and effectively an organization delivers its products or services. It is reasonable to predict that good metrics from on-time delivery and the quality of products and services correlate to a high level of Customer satisfaction. These metrics are visible to the Customer but just as important are the measures of productivity, inventory turnover and reduction as well as downtime and defects.

...Finances
Managing solely by the financial metric can easily break other metrics. Manage and improve processes associated with the Customer, Employees, Suppliers and the Organization and the financial metric will naturally improve.

What quality improvement tool will inspire you to take your Company to another level?

Do you need a tool that will help you PLAN what you want your Company to do to take it to the next level? Will the quality improvement tool you choose help you:

...Understand your business culture and the relationship you have with your Customers, Suppliers and Partners?

...Understand your competitive environment, key challenges and the system you use for performance improvement?

...Understand your ability to achieve a competitive market position, overall performance and future success?

Do you need a tool that will help you DO what you want your Company to do to take it to the next level? Will the quality improvement tool you choose help you:

...Understand what your Customers want so your products and services stay current?

...Build relationships with Customers, increase Customer loyalty and determine Customer satisfaction?

...Identify and manage significant processes that create Customer value and achieve business success and growth?

...Manage support processes?

...Work in a way that enables your Company and employees to achieve high performance?

...Build employee knowledge, skills and capabilities?

...Maintain a work environment and employee support culture that contribute to the well-being, satisfaction and motivation of all employees?

...Establish links between your plans and what you do so you can measure, analyze, align and improve your performance data and information at all levels and in all areas of your organization?

...Ensure the quality and availability of linked data and information so you can mine databases with timely reports?

Do you need a tool that will help you CHECK what you've done to take your Company to the next level? Will the quality improvement tool you choose help you:

...Chart your most significant Customer focused results (past, present, projected, showing trends...) including Customer satisfaction and Customer perceived value, segmented by appropriate Customer groups and markets and include appropriate comparative data and benchmarks?

...Chart your most significant product and service performance results (past, present, projected, showing trends...) segmented by product groups, Customer groups and markets with appropriate comparative data and benchmarks?

...Chart your most significant human resource results (past, present, projected, showing trends...) including work system performance and employee learning, development, well-being and satisfaction, segmented to address the appropriate diversity of your workforce and the different types and categories of employees with appropriate comparative data and benchmarks?

...Chart your most significant operational performance results (past, present, projected, showing trends...) that contribute to the achievement of Company effectiveness, segmented by appropriate product groups and markets with appropriate comparative data and benchmarks?

...Chart your most significant self-control and community responsibility results (past, present, projected, showing trends...) including evidence of fiscal accountability, ethical behavior, legal compliance and organizational citizenship, segmented by appropriate business units with appropriate comparative data and benchmarks?

Do you need a tool that will help you ACT to take your Company to the next level after planning, doing and checking? Will the quality improvement tool you choose help you:

...Control and guide your Company with leaders reviewing the performance you have charted and checked?

...Fulfill your Company's responsibilities to the community, ensure ethical behavior and practice good citizenship?

...Convert strategic objectives based on using the results of your plan and using them in future action plans, linked to charted results that contain significant performance measures and indicators that help restart the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle to induce continuous improvement?

Will the quality improvement tools you choose help you implement Deming's 14 Principles:

1) Create constancy of purpose toward improvement of product and service with the aim of becoming competitive, staying in business and providing jobs.

2) Adopt a philosophy that does not tolerate lack of quality, defects, antiquated training methods and inadequate / ineffective supervision.

3) Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality.

4) End the practice of awarding business on the basis of price tag, minimize total cost, move toward a single supplier for any one item based on a long-term relationship of loyalty and trust.

5) Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service to improve quality and productivity to constantly decrease costs.

6) Institute training on the job.

7) Institute leadership that aims to help people and machines do a better job.

8) Drive out fear so everyone can work effectively for the Company.

9) Break down barriers between departments.

10) Eliminate slogans, exhortations and targets that ask the workforce for zero defects and new levels of productivity. (The bulk of the causes of low quality and low productivity belong to the system, which lies beyond the power of the workforce.)

11) Eliminate quotas on the factory floor - substitute leadership.

12) Remove barriers that rob hourly workers, engineers and people in management of their right to pride of workmanship - abolish annual merit ratings and management by objectives - change the responsibility of supervisors from sheer numbers to quality.

13) Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement.

14) Put everyone in the Company to work to accomplish the transformation.

If you are interested in using this approach to start your quality program, please click on the links in the following table in the Baldrige Award column.

Here are a few quality approaches that could inspire you to take your Company to another level:

If your project is to immediately implement a quality program to qualify your organization for new business or to help you win your next contract then your choice of quality programs is not what will inspire you but what will satisfy your urgency.

Urgency is common in many businesses and provides a good reason to start a quality program. You may not be inspired by the program you choose but you will provide a foundation for improvement.

Starting any quality program enhances the understanding of your business culture and helps to reveal the influence it has on the activities of your business - knowledge is power.

Quality System Overview:

Where-to-start - our homepage provides a short description about the process to implement any of our quality systems, which will make you the expert regarding your quality system.  Tips to implement a quality system

Quality System Complexity:

The Customer is the reason most businesses use ISO and the version you use will depend on whether you produce according to a Customer supplied specification, build according to your specifications or provide a service.

The overwhelming reason that businesses choose to certify to ISO is to get a "pedigree" for their quality system so their Customers can check-the-box on their surveys and focus attention on price and schedule. No Customer ever wants to spend time in "discovery" about the quality system of a Supplier and "ISO" spells the word "relief" for almost every Customer.

Our Manufacturing Kit is commercial-grade with no name-brand value but most of the procedures and forms can be used for compliance to ISO. The Manufacturing Kit is based upon an old-traditional paradigm that "checks-the-box" for compliance rather than the new-modern paradigm that continuously improves the "process" - ISO 9001:2008 is based upon the new-modern paradigm: Manufacturing Kit

Our MIL-I Kit is based upon the old-traditional paradigm but it is compatible with ISO as shown by the quality system cross-reference matrix that is included with the Kit. MIL-I has name-brand value and is a good entry-level system for most Customers: MIL-I-45208 Kit

Our AS9003 Kit is a little more comprehensive than MIL-I and it is based upon the 1994 version of ISO 9002, which was also old-traditional. AS9003 has name-brand value and is also a good entry-level system for most Aerospace Customers: AS9003 Kit

The logic of today is "If you're going to spend valuable resources to start a quality program then start with ISO 9001:2008." The logic saves money because there is only going to be one culture-shock or paradigm-shift in the Company instead of grinding the wheels to start one program and then shifting direction to start another program.
Design - build to your specs: Design ISO Kit
Build to Customer specs: Build-to-Print ISO Kit
Service: Service ISO Kit

There are some key differences between our ISO Kits for "Design", "Build-to-Print" and "Service".

The "Design" Kit includes provisions for control of the design and development of products for businesses that manufacture according to their own specifications and engineering drawings.

The "Build-to-Print" Kit is for businesses that only manufacture according to Customer provided specifications and drawings. The quality manual in this Kit records an exception to the ISO standard for Clause 7, Design Control.

The "Service" Kit is for businesses that provide a service, such as a surveyor, contractor, engineering group, etc; however, if you provide a service that is based upon your own specifications then you will need the ISO Design Kit.

Well, you know best how to satisfy your Customer but we recommend you stay away from commercial-grade because you will have to "romance" your Customer into believing you have things under control. Customers just want to check-the-box on their forms that a Supplier has a "name-brand" quality system - if they can't then they'll have to spend a lot of time and money on figuring-out if the Supplier is worth taking a risk with their business. A name-brand quality program is like having a college degree - it qualifies you for hiring! The "romance" method works but the results are not consistent and the real goal of every Supplier is to get "hired" by the Customer.

We recommend our MIL-I-45208 Kit to ease your business into quality control, which takes about three weeks to implement and will prepare you for Customer audit.

MIL-I is the minimum quality system that is required for Government contracts. AS9003 is the minimum quality system for work with Boeing and other Aerospace manufacturers. AS9100 is our most comprehensive Kit and is required by Customers that produce high-reliability products for Aerospace and is located at: AS9100 Kit

Hope this information helps and we provide free consulting for all our Customers.

Here are a few quality management systems that could take your Company to another level:

AS9003 Inspection and Test Quality Assurance System Kit

AS9100 Aerospace Quality Assurance System Kit

AS9102 First Article Inspection Procedure FAI

Build-to-Print Quality Management System Kit

Construction Quality Management System Kits, AISC

Continuous Improvement Kit

Design Quality Management System Kit

Distributor and/or Distributor-Manufacturer Kit

FAA-PMA Facility Inspection System Kit

FAA Repair Station and Quality Control Manual Kit

FAA Repair Station Training Manual Kit

ISO 9001:2008 Complete, comprehensive kits for a variety of businesses

ISO 9001:2008 Starter Kit for Company that builds-to-print

ISO 9001:2008 Starter Kit for Company that designs products

ISO 9001:2008 Starter Kit for Company that provides a service

Manufacturing Company Starter Kit

MIL-I-45208 Inspection System Kit

MIL-Q-9858 Quality Control Program

Service Company Starter Kit

Service Quality Management System Kit

Software Quality Assurance Manual

Supplier Control Kit

Total Quality Management System Plan

Click on the following links for additional support:

Manuals | Procedures | FAA | Forms | Kits | ISO | Gov

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