Define Company-Specific Attributes

The goal of these discussions is to focus on how we do things here the next step will be to apply these findings to the PSM framework you have selected. The result will be clearly defined goals for your company s PSM initiative. 

Brainstorming helps draw out participants ideas in raw form. To make the most of this technique, you must set some groundrules, the most important of which is that brainstorming is non-judgmental. Team members must be encouraged to voice ideas without fear of criticism from the leader or their teammates. 

Questions posed in brainstorming should be open-ended (as opposed to yes-or-no) and relevant to the task at hand. Be sure to record responses accurately, and in enough detail that you can recall their substance for further discussion. Some examples of useful brainstorming questions are  

Leading a brainstorming session takes practice. Try for a fast pace and be sensitive to participants move on to another question as soon as you sense that ideas are becoming forced. 

Brainstorming often throws off valuable ideas or information that may be off the immediate topic (e.g., we really should review and update ourMSDSs ). These should be encouraged and recorded for future use. 

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Much of the following section discusses the basics of establishing and working with intracompany, multidisciplinary teams. If you are familiar and experienced with this approach to problem-solving, you may wish to skip to Section 3.4, Define Company-Specific Attributes."... 

There are many different definitions and dimensions of quality to be found in books and academic literature. Basu (2004) defines quality with three dimensions, such as design quality (specification), process quality (conformance) and organization quality (sustainability). When an organization develops and defines its quality strategy, it is important to share a common definition of quaUty and each department within a company can work towards a common objective. The product quality should contain defined attributes of both numeric specifications and perceived dimensions. The process quality, whether it relates to manufacturing or service operations, should also contain some defined criteria of acceptable service level so that the conformity of the output can be validated against these... 

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