What are Quality Leadership, Quality Policy and Quality Goals?

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.