IMPLEMENTING QUALITY IMPROVEMENT PROGRAMS

The leaders of any organization that provides services to its customers, whether directly or through its products, must constantly review not only profitability, operating efficiency, market share etc., but also quality performance. Over the last 10 years some British companies have achieved remarkable results against these measures of success. Some, under the threat of closure, have recovered over periods of 4-6 years not only to survive but in some cases to achieve world ratings in total business quality, return on investment etc. And how have they done this? The answer is, "by implementing successful Quality Improvement Programmes". At least two winners of the British Quality Awards since 1984 have demonstrated not only " survival to excellence but also levels of quality and economic performance surpassing those of their direct counterparts in Japan. These companies, from a wide range of manufacturing and service activities, were invited to submit quality improvement programmes that had matured over the previous 4 years, for detailed assessment by a panel of experts. The benefits they gained included: great reductions in product defects at all stages of production and in customer use; improvement in product reliability substantial decreases in company quality costs (scrap, rework, warranty, inspection costs, etc.); and as a result increased market share; increased operating efficiency and profitability; reduced inventory costs; reduced lead/delivery times; increased morale of staff; and greater individual and team commitment to the objectives of the company. It seems to be a totally valid claim that "investment in a properly implemented Quality Improvement Programme will generally provide a significantly greater and swifter return than through investments in plant, buildings, etc. " The procedures for QIPs are critically important. The steering committee which has to be set up to take responsibility for co-ordinating the programme through the plant must be chaired by the Chief Executive himself. He must be fully committed to driving the programme and convincing all members of the company that: "we must improve customer satisfaction" "we must increase overall competitiveness" and "we must reduce our quality costs" and by implementing this Quality Improvement Programme "we will achieve Total Business Quality". Success in every case was achieved by first concentrating on quality awareness, staff attitudes and motivation, followed by staff training for quality in design, production processes and business support. By harnessing the creative energies of all people in the organization, outstanding results have been widely achieved. This ties in with the Japanese philosophy for company development known as kaizen. Literally translated this means "improvements", or in other words, "constant efforts to improve products and services involving all employees of the company". This paper outlines the procedures and techniques by which these outstanding results have been obtained.