Achieving, sustaining, and improving quality

The basic goal of quality management is the elimination of failure both in the concept and in the reality of our products, services, and processes. In an ideal world, if we could design products, services, and processes that could not fail we would have achieved the ultimate goal. Failure means not only that products, services, and processes would fail to fulfill their function but that their function was not what our customers desired. A gold-plated mousetrap that does not fail is not a success if no one needs a gold-plated mousetrap  

We have only to look at the introductory clauses of ISO 9001 to find that the aim of the requirements is to achieve customer satisfaction by prevention of nonconformities. Hence quality management is a means for planning, organizing, and controlling the prevention of failure. All the tools and techniques that are used in quality management serve to improve our ability to succeed in our pursuit of excellence. 

Quality management is both a technical subject and a behavioral subject. It is not a bureaucratic administrative technique. The rise in popularity of ISQ 9000 has created some unhelpful messages such as the document what you do strategy. There has also been a perception in the service industries that ISQ 9000 quality systems only deal with the procedural aspects of a service and not the professional aspects. For instance in a medical practice, the ISQ 9000 quality system is often used only for processing patients 

Another often forgotten aspect of quality management is the behavior of people in an organization. Such behavior is formed by the core values to which that organization subscribes. The absence of core values that form a positive behavior may not have an immediate effect because individuals will operate according to their own personal values. When these conflict with the organization s values, an individual could resent being forced to comply and may eventually adopt the values of the majority or leave to find a more suitable company to work for. 

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Several methods have evolved to achieve, sustain, and improve quality, they are quality control, quality improvement, and quality assurance, which collectively are known as quality management. This trilogy is illustrated in Figure 2.1. Techniques such as quality planning, quality costs, Just-in-time , and statistical process control are all elements of... 

The purpose of a quality system is to enable you to economically achieve, sustain, and improve quality. It is unlikely that you will be able to produce and sustain the required quality unless you organize yourselves to do so. Quality does not happen by chance -it has to be managed. No human endeavor has ever been successful without having been planned, organized, and controlled in some way. 

Although there are only two basic requirements in ISO/TS 16949 for the establishment and maintenance of a quality system, they are perhaps the most important requirements of all. The quality system is a tool to enable you to achieve, sustain, and improve quality. It implements your quality policy and enables you to achieve your quality objectives either for control or for improvement. Quality systems, like any other system, need to be managed and so quality system management is a function of the business. This function consists of four principal processes ... 

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