QED consulting
QED Consulting. Whitehouse Cross, Dromiskin, Dundalk, Co. Louth, Ireland.
Tel/Fax: +353 (0)42 937 2465
E-mail: info@qedconsulting.ie
- because QA systems need to constantly improve too.
Why QA (Quality Assurance) is a good idea
Define responsibility and accountability - spell out where responsibility lies - remove ambiguity about ownership;
Document important processes - think through, then set down how something should happen. Don't rely on hearsay;
Improving your processes - never stop improving how the business functions. Eliminate mediocrity, disorder and chaos;
Improve products / services - make them better, improve their margin, add more value, give more of what customers want;
Problem resolution - become methodical and efficient at solving and eliminating problem;
Learn from history - learn from past mistakes, successes and trends. Don't keep repeating mistakes;
Listen to your customers - make sure you know what's important to them.  It's easy to be wrong;
Communicate - people like to know what's going on.  Communication needs to be active, not passive;
Training - untrained people on any job will probably wreak havoc. Short term pragmatism should not prevail;
Data for decisions - ensure data sources are suitable to allow data to be converted into information;
Quality perceptions - find out where your business lies in customer supplier ratings, and why;
Stimulate your suppliers - encourage suppliers to up their game, pursue quality, process and cost improvements too;
Self-scrutiny - internally audit your important processes - don't rely on "hear no evil, see no evil...";
Equipment - care for equipment and assets properly, so that they don't let you and your customers down;
Cost of Failures - identify and count the costs of failures - not getting it right.  Connect your programs to these figures;
Culture and values - getting it right first time can become the culture, if management walks the talk.
www.qedconsulting.ie
AllClear
AllClear
Proquis PRQE
Proquis PRQE
Proquis PoD
Proquis PoD
Quality is as perceived by customers.  For viability, quality has to be both excellent, and achieved using efficient processes.
Questions for Management:
Quality - is quality improvement anywhere on the agenda?  Are any resources applied to its improvement?
Measurement - are there any measurements of quality? Were they included in the annual report?
Customer perceptions - do you know or care how your organisation is perceived by your customers?
Processes - are your business processes continuously being improved?
Leadership - do your managers and CEO understand QA and do they walk the talk?
ISO Cert - is the certificate hanging in Reception the main reason for certification?
Technology - do paper records still dominate?  How long does it take to extract answers to basic questions?
Competitiveness - if you competing with Asia, do you expect to match their quality and survive?
Warranty - does your company give "No Quibble Return" warranties? Could you?
New products - how long does it take to get a new product out?
Training - are employees ever asked to "fill in" on jobs, for which they are untrained?
Information control - when a process is changed, how is it communicated, and to whom?
Self-scrutiny - is there a system to check whether processes are being followed, and whether they're any good?
Problems - how clinical is your problem solving?  Do actions work on causes or effects?
A Fable - many a true word said in jest!
Properly understood and implemented real QA (quality assurance) is about removing the need for inspections, not adding more to try to compensate for deficient processes or designs.             Quality is too important to be left to one person/department - responsibility for it needs to be in everyone's job description.                  Quality cannot be inspected or audited "into" a product or service, as it comes from product and process design.                   Poor process capabilities and wide tolerances cause big compromises in product/service designs and damaged competitiveness.                       If you aren't part of the quality solution, you're probably part of the problem.                  Corrective actions that only treat symptoms don't actually fix problems.                      Actions to remove causes are always much more difficult to accomplish.                    Sporadic or bushfire problems often get "sorted" long before the chronic problems do.  Chronic problems are the ones that kill businesses.                     Just because something isn't broke shouldn't mean it doesn't get improved - don't listen to words of wisdom.                    Management processes cause most serious quality problems.                      Concentrate on "what's" the problem, not "who's" the problem.             You do NOT "get what you pay for".  Quality and specification, which is normally linked to price, are not the same thing.
Technology solutions for the improvement of Quality, Efficiency & Design of processes
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The role of Quality Assurance is complicated and difficult to get right.  Quality Assurance professionals usually have to rely on persuasion and  compelling arguments to influence their colleagues to play their part in the operation of the quality management system QMS and the improvement of quality.  QA is supposed to be radical and revolutionary in the search for better ways to do things, in the reduction of waste and failures, and not be conservative of the status quo.  QA exists to make the QMS and the adopted processes as flexible as possible, but to make employees and management abide by them, and not cut corners, or change the process!