Quality
Leadership
In many businesses competition on the
market for customers is extremely intense. The situation could be likened to a
war. The organizations that are successful in this struggle are those who are
better and more efficient than others at satisfying customer needs and wishes.
The war is not conducted solely on the domestic market, in some cases foreign
markets are the most important arenas.
Success in battle requires good
leadership. The same applies to
acquiring customers who are entirely satisfied with the products. What is
required is quality leadership.
Leadership emanates from the senior manager
in the organization. It is he or she who should be quality leader number one,
and in that capacity provide hands-on leadership in the quality field.
Leadership of this type is based on
management’s explicitly stated vision. This vision should describe what the
company intends to achieve in terms of quality.
In order to realize this vision, real
leadership is required, which includes:
Quality
policy
The quality policy describes the vision and
provides brief guidelines for how the business is to be run to realize this
vision.
Quality
goals
Quality goals are specific, measurable
goals for quality activities. It is
particularly important to have goals for quality improvements.
Quality
system
Quality work includes activities,
procedures and methods. These form a network known as the quality system.
Customers may demand that the company has a quality system in accordance with
the requirements of ISO 9001 or ISO 22000 or both.
Quality
organization
Quality is the outcome of the work for many
people. If a good result is to be achieved, the organization should have a
structure with a proper division of responsibility and authority for quality
activities is clearly defined.
Involvement
and participation of all – All the people in the organization influence quality
through their day-to-day work. It is therefore important that everyone is given
conditions that will allow them to perform their work so that the right quality
results. In many organizations shifting the focus onto quality represents a
change in corporate culture. Characteristics of the new culture will include
trust and delegation. All the employees become involved in a continuous
improvement process.
Quality
policy
Effective quality leadership depends on
management providing clear guidelines as to how the business is to be run and
to follow up that the business is run in the stipulated way. These guidelines
are best included in the company’s written quality policy.
According to the international standard for
terminology, ISO 8402 (1994), quality policy is defined as “overall intentions and direction of an organization with regard to quality, as formally expressed
by top management”.
The international standards for quality
system requirements, which form part of the ISO 9001 state, as a first
requirement, that a company should have a quality policy.
It is becoming increasingly common for
companies to have a quality policy. The primary factor behind this is the
growing interest in ISO 9001. If management wishes to act in accordance with
the requirements of ISO 9001 this naturally means that the company must have a
quality policy. If this is the only reason for drawing up a quality policy, the
relevance of having one at all might be questioned. What is preferable is that management feels
deeply that it wishes to express its intentions in the quality field to its
employees. A quality policy should come from the heart.
Many organizations do not have a written
quality policy. Even so, many of them believe that they do have a policy. What
they have in mind in such cases is certain principles, which have emerged about
the way things are done. These principles perhaps originate from decisions that
top management has made on specific issues.
Situations can arise where the absence of a
clearly stated, generally known quality policy could obstruct activities
intended to solve quality problems. The
real reason why the organization finds itself in difficulties in the quality
field could in fact be that it does not have a quality policy.
The
quality level of the goods or services – Should the aim be to achieve
leadership on quality, leadership on price, or not even to be a leader at all,
etc.?
Customer
relationships – Analyses
of customer needs, response to complaints.
Supplier
relationship
– Should suppliers be treated as an internal department and thus be given the
equivalent support or should they be left to their own devices?
Relationships
with personnel
– Should the personnel be given all the conditions required to do a good job?
ISO 9001 states: “The supplier’s management
with executive responsibility shall define and document its policy for quality,
including objectives for quality and its commitment to quality. The quality
policy shall be relevant to the supplier’s organizational goals and the
expectations and needs of its customers. The supplier shall ensure that this
policy is understood, implemented and maintained at all levels in the
organization”. policy is understood, implemented and maintained at all levels
in the organization”.
If a quality policy is to have the desired
effect on quality activities certain points should be taken into account:
The
quality policy should reflect the business idea.
Underlying the business as such there is a
business idea, a concept or a vision. The company may also have stated
long-term objectives and guidelines for the business. The quality policy should
naturally help to realize the ideas and objectives stated in these. This means
that the quality policy should be in line with these objectives.
The
quality policy should be long term in character.
Influencing the quality of a company’s
goods and services is a task, which should have a long-term focus. This means that the quality policy should be
long-term in character.
The
quality policy should be comprehensive.
More or less all functions have a direct
influence on the quality of goods and services. From this it follows that the
quality policy should provide guidelines for the activities of all these
functions.
The
quality policy should be relevant.
The contents of the quality policy should
be of importance to the business. Unnecessary and vague formulations should be
avoided.
The
quality policy should be expressed in simple terms.
If the quality policy is to achieve the
desired effect it should be communicated to everyone in the organization. It
should therefore be written in simple, easy to-understand terms.
The
quality policy should be brief.
If the quality policy is long, everyone
won’t read it. It is much easier to read if it is short and to the point.
The
quality policy should be communicated in an authoritative manner.
The quality policy should reflect the
intentions of the company’s management in the quality field and explain how in
principle they are to be achieved. This means that the policy document should
be issued by the chief executive. No
other name, such as that of the quality manager, should appear on the document
as this might give a signal that top management does not give its full support
to the policy.
For greatest effect, the quality policy
should have three sections:
The
need for a quality policy
This explains the background and objects of
the quality policy.
The
basic approach to quality
This explains the overall intentions of top
management in the quality field, in other words, it is management’s vision.
Relation
of basic approach
This states the guidelines to be followed
in all the activities intended to realize the vision.
The guidelines take the form of brief guiding principles. They
should cover four areas of importance in the quality field:
Functions
that influence quality
This refers to functions such as market
studies, product development, purchasing, production, marketing, distribution,
etc.
People
as individuals and as part of an organization
The individual – wherever he or she may be
in the organization – is a factor of crucial importance in the quality context.
The attitudes and qualifications of the individuals play an important role in
this respect. Moreover, each individual has to work closely with other
individuals in the organization.
Information
It is necessary to follow up activities to
ensure that they result in the quality required. This requires information.
Improvements
Success in the quality field requires
constant effort to satisfy market needs and requirements more effectively and
efficiently. It is important that the quality policy is made known to everyone
in the organization. An explanation should be provided of what the policy
implies for the work of each and every individual. This will enable it to serve
as the intended guidelines for all aspects of the business.
Quality
Goals
Quality goals are meant the agreed goals
for quality on which the business should focus. These goals should be both
quantitative and written.
Quality goals could involve control at a
given level (i.e. maintaining the status quo) or improvements (i.e. changes in
the status quo). It is not enough merely
to have goals of the first kind. It is also important to agree on goals of the
second type and work towards them, in other words to have an goal-oriented
program for quality improvement.
Quality goals can take different forms:
Absolute
figures
An example of this type might be the cost
of poor quality in various areas of the business or for various goods and
services.
Ratios and Costs seen in relation to
turnover. The level of complaints could be stated per product or service.
Relative
differences
These are used to indicate goals for
improvements, such as a 25 per cent reduction in the cost of complaints over
years.
Quality goals are naturally closely related
to information on quality. In most cases
it is advisable to set up quality goals which relate to the following
information:
Customer
satisfaction
Cost of poor
quality
Level of complaints
Process output
Quality audit
result
Inspection result
Some of the quality goals can be included
in the company’s regular budget. Experience (within Electrolux and Motorola,
for example) shows that quality goals should be dramatic. This will trigger off
a mental process among the company’s employees. They begin to think along
different lines, try out new approaches, work together in new and radically
different ways. All of this enables them to achieve goals, if they are
dramatic. This is really what is meant by process re-engineering.
It is advisable to have overall goals for
the entire organization, which can then be broken down into sub-goals for each
part of the business. The quality goals should be written down, as this makes
it easier to unite everyone concerned around the established goals. It is also
easier to plan activities and take action if the goals are specific and in
written form. If the efforts to reach the goals are to generate the right
results, it is important that they properly explained to everyone concerned. The
company should also have programs and plans, which explain how the goals are
to be achieved. Progress should be followed up regularly to ensure that the
goals are achieved.
There are several advantages to having
quantitative and written goals for quality activities:
It helps the parties involved to think
along the same lines.
It stimulates people to take action.
It provides an environment in which
activities can be carried out in a planned way and not merely as a response to
sporadic problems.
It enables results to be followed up in
relation to the goals.
