Quality Management Department: How to Avoid Becoming a Quality Handling Department!
We all know that the core of a quality management system is to meet customer needs. The customers here fall into two categories: external user customers and internal related departments within the enterprise.
Under the quality management requirements of the new era, the quality management department has shifted from a supervisory department to a service department. The definition of quality is no longer limited to product quality alone; it must also include management level, the degree of process execution, and internal process discipline within the enterprise.
01 Quality as a Service Function
How can customer needs be met? This can be discussed from two perspectives: one situation is being unable to identify problems oneself, and the other is being unable to solve problems oneself.
The first situation refers to the service needed, which is the monitoring and inspection function of quality itself.
The second situation is relatively complex and can roughly be divided into resource, method, and capability issues.
1) Resource issues When quality cannot resolve the problem, the so-called service is to verify whether resources are insufficient and to provide third-party evidence, but it cannot make decisions on resource allocation.
2) Method issues Quality can provide consulting services, and the effect depends on the final action plan and execution capability of the implementing unit.
3) Capability issues These are more troublesome. Can quality solve the problem of insufficient capability in other departments? What service can it provide?
In actual production processes, service as a working style is promoted within the quality department, but it cannot be treated as a task. Quality can provide services, and the content of the service is quality management.
The basic role of quality is that of a judge. A judge can provide judicial consultation, legal education, and rulings in accordance with the law, but cannot provide defense services, let alone be responsible for ensuring that illegal events do not occur.
This is a line of thinking, but it is not an excuse to shirk responsibility. Clarifying one's scope of work, responsibilities, and basic position is for better teamwork, not for building barriers between departments.
Just as the quality department wants others to know that quality is manufactured, the quality department cannot use this to explain why the quality department exists.
Judging from calls from all sides, everyone still believes that quality serves production, but quality serves the brand, serves the customer, monitors product performance, identifies problems, and verifies results.
More importantly, related departments should recognize that quality is the result of their work, not the work content of the quality department. Quality is management, not handling.
Quality culture means making the people who do the work responsible for the results. We can say let the quality department judge, investigate, and collect data. But we cannot let it solve so-called quality problems.
The finance department is responsible for finance-related management work. Is there any company that would hold finance responsible for a loss and require it to formulate effective marketing plans, market strategies, production cost reduction, and quality cost control?
No department, position, or individual has a single role. Even in the same scenario, roles must constantly shift as communication deepens.
From the perspective of value creation, quality and quality management are both non-value-adding activities. Whom do they serve? What product do they provide?
The product provided by quality management is data. Like finance, this data is used to provide relevant departments with information to discover existing problems and to give management a basis for judgment and decision-making. The expectation for data is that it be objective and accurate—this is the significance of the quality department's existence.
02 Quality as a Management Function
The basic role of quality is management. If it departs from its basic role, no matter how well auxiliary functions are performed, they are meaningless.
Countless cases show that if service is treated as the main function, the quality management department will become a quality handling department. As quality management personnel, we must know what the correct direction of career development is and how to compromise with reality to ensure survival. We must never cripple our own core strengths.
Of course, many times we need to consider quality from a business perspective, but we absolutely cannot decide quality from a business perspective. Empathy and due diligence are not contradictory.
What exactly does quality management do? In many people's minds, quality should be a management role. Quality management is a role that leads a team, listens to opinions from all parties to make judgments, supervises execution, and confirms results.
Here is a most common example: When a customer complaint comes in, quality's responsibility is to confirm that the reported phenomenon is true, then confirm the process stage where the problem may have occurred, and next convene a meeting of relevant units. At the meeting, the relevant departments confirm whether the problem belongs to their department and, if so, which process stage may have produced it. Quality should not have the quality engineer ask one department after another, letting each department analyze itself and then investigate itself.
Quality's responsibility should be to establish such a team. With such a team, continuous improvement and defect prevention will naturally take shape.
Quality's capability lies in chairing such meetings, not in analyzing problems itself. It is about soliciting opinions from other departments to jointly form conclusions—this is communication and leadership skill.
The working method of quality management should be close to that of the finance department: standards, systems, records, and data.
The position of quality management should be detached and independent. Unfortunately, structurally speaking, quality is a function within the operations system, and operations is responsible for efficiency. As a result, it is destined to be unable to maintain a detached and independent position. Attached to the three major functional units, it loses decision-making power and becomes merely a figurehead.
Today's quality departments are advisory in nature. When there is trouble, people come to you for ideas and then demand that you vigorously improve quality.
When you prescribe health remedies, everyone says they are very good and important but not urgent, so we keep spinning in circles at the original level and within the original circle.
03 Quality: Returning to Quality Assurance
In fact, the essence of quality is non-value-adding. Quality is the police. As society progresses, quality should be dispersed into other functions—only then can it return to the root of assuring quality.
From the product perspective: Future quality management will definitely transition from functionality to service.
From the management perspective: The quality control function of quality will be replaced by customer service and product engineers.
From the inspection perspective: With the development of automated inspection technology, 100% synchronous inspection in the production process will increase substantially and will better provide data and monitor effects for source improvement.
From the supply relationship perspective: In the future, the focus of quality management personnel will shift to playing a role in every link of the entire supply chain. Similar to today's SQE, but the role will incorporate more project management techniques. They will work according to each designed and developed product and service project.
04 13 Steps to Do Quality Management Well!
Many enterprises remain at the most basic stage in managing quality problems. It is not that your quality problems cannot be solved, but that the work of quality management has not been done thoroughly!
This article summarizes 13 steps for doing enterprise quality management well:
1. Do things right the first time. Problems must be solved immediately. Do not wait until workers have finished or until final inspection to discover them—that is too late.
If problems are not solved immediately, they will ultimately lead to defective products, rework, customer returns, and substantial losses for the factory. Strict incoming inspection and in-process quality control must be implemented and executed at every link or every process. This includes the processing of every component and material on the production line. Please note that third-party inspection companies will not find many errors, and even if they do, it is too late.
2. If you have not seen the result with your own eyes, do not pretend. Do not just tell your employees to do this or that. Some people will listen to you, but most will not. You must constantly use your eyes to look, inspect, correct, and guide. Do not just tell your employees how they should do things.
You should go deep into the front line on site, look again and again, observe, and check whether employees are operating according to your requirements. You must continuously guide and correct your employees, repeatedly guiding and correcting, until the correct operation becomes their conditioned reflex and their work habit. This cannot be accomplished overnight.
3. Do not assume that errors will not occur just because you have molds and fixtures. If your mold or fixture is wrong, then all products produced will be wrong. Find a way to design your molds and fixtures so that workers can only place the workpiece to be processed in the single, correct way you designed, with no other choice. Let the mold or fixture control the worker's operation; do not expect the worker to control the mold or fixture.
Because no matter how many times you tell workers how to do it, some will listen, but most will not. Make daily calibration and inspection of fixtures and equipment a mandatory task, assign a responsible person, and make it a task that department supervisors must personally check and record.
4. How do you know? In daily management work, no matter when you ask what kind of question, you will almost always get a suitable answer. However, in reality, no one truly knows the truth of the problem.
Do not simply take the replies you receive as correct answers. You must provide continuous training to employees and personally witness that they are indeed doing things correctly. Internal audits must be conducted, and a well-established internal audit system must be built to ensure that workers comply with the factory's standard operating procedures.
Laboratory testing inside the factory must be scientific and reliable, and test records must be traceable by test date and batch number to the parts and products on the production line. Otherwise, the laboratory's test results are the same as sample testing. If they cannot reflect the quality level of mass production, testing loses its meaning, and the quality of mass production loses its assurance.
5. Never assume. Do not answer casually: "We have never had any problems before, why worry..." Do not wait until problems arise before taking action, or assume problems cannot happen to you. Find ways to prevent possible problems.
Do not rely on "relationships" (i.e., people you know or are familiar with) to control the quality and quality stability of suppliers' components and materials. Strictly implement and operate incoming quality control (IQC). When necessary, some materials or parts require 100% inspection, some materials or parts should be sampled at specified proportions, and some need to be sent to the laboratory for testing. Laboratory-tested items must be traceable to the specific incoming batch, batch number, and the contract number under which they are used. If test results do not pass, the specific batch of parts or raw materials must be replaced or suspended. Adhere to the "first in, first out" (FIFO) material control principle.
6. Focus on the key points. Quality management characteristics: Determine key processes and processes affecting product quality through quality information statistics and process analysis; Strengthen control of key processes and processes by establishing "quality control points"; Actively carry out QC activities and conduct quality improvement according to the PDCA cycle; Have an independent quality assurance department, with the quality assurance department and production department jointly responsible for product quality. Application of quality and reliability technology: QC tools such as fishbone diagrams and Pareto charts are promoted and used on the production floor; Statistical process control (SPC) and design of experiments begin to be used in key processes and processes; Analyze the causes of quality instability in the production process from multiple aspects and formulate corresponding measures. Quality performance level: The defect rate, scrap rate, and rework rate in the production process begin to decrease; Key process capability index Cpk ≈ 1.33.
7. Create a stable and reasonable working environment to manage your employees and reduce human operating errors. Do not expect workers to control the environment, and do not expect workers to listen. Adopt appropriate methods to make workers' jobs simpler and easier, thereby improving product quality, enhancing process stability, and reducing errors. Install padding on all work surfaces, carts, shelves, etc., to minimize damage to parts and products during online assembly and packaging.
If padding is worn, it must be replaced promptly. All places that need it must have padding protection; it cannot be present in some places and absent in others. Every required item must be done well and checked thoroughly. Provide workers with suitable, well-performing tools so they can do their work well. Ensure workstations have good lighting so workers can clearly see the work they are doing.
8. Strictly implement "5S" on site and keep all work areas clean and tidy. Separate work areas prone to dust from areas that must remain clean. Require all workers to wash their hands after meals and after using the restroom before returning to their workstations.
Wear hairnets or work caps before starting work to prevent hair from falling onto products. In certain specific processes, require all workers to wear gloves, including management personnel. Ensure there are no rats or insects in the work area.
Before the end of each workday, give workers 10–15 minutes to clean their own work areas (cleaning time is counted as working time and paid). In this way, they can start work the next day in a clean environment and can develop good on-site cleaning management habits among workers.
9. Authorize and encourage employees at all levels to identify various problems in work and report them promptly. This means you should permit and encourage your workers to speak up, offer opinions, and point out problems. Do not let employees feel that "only the boss can speak" or "the boss is always right."
Encourage and reward your employees for providing opinions and suggestions to prevent problems rather than covering up and concealing problems when they are found. If employees help the factory reduce waste and labor losses from rework, give them material rewards to recognize and encourage them.
Do not use intimidation, hierarchical management, fines, abuse, insults, or other typical Chinese-style management methods. If you do so, no one will be willing to speak or express opinions, errors will continue, and problems will keep occurring. This open and non-open hierarchical management style can only start from the top. Managers at all other levels must also learn this style.
10. Pursuing quality at all costs is also "going too far." Some enterprises with strong resources and deep pockets work hard on product quality, adopting the most advanced production processes, the most expensive equipment, the most automated control systems, and the world's best raw and auxiliary materials. Of course, there is nothing wrong with this—if you have money, you can do as you please!
However, everything has its limits, and everything has an optimal cost-performance ratio.
You can think about it: how many of your daily "deviations" are caused by inappropriate control strategies, internal control quality standards set too high, process parameter control ranges set too narrow, and one rope after another tied tightly around yourself so that every movement hurts? What appears to be strict management actually ends up either causing huge losses or being strict on the surface but loose underneath, and finally fizzling out.
Any quality control is based on quality risk and existing technical means. We certainly encourage innovation, but absolutely not blind and pointless raising of standards. "Emphasizing data integrity and implementing computer control with audit trail functions in both production and inspection processes"—will quality really improve?
11. Talking about "cost" while setting aside "quality" is "a moth flying into the flame." The benefits of a project depend on whether the project deliverables are high in quality, low in cost, short in duration, and acceptable in risk! Under equal conditions, higher quality requirements mean higher costs, while conversely, high cost does not necessarily bring high quality.
There is a calculation formula in project management:
Many enterprises, when doing projects, emphasize both high-end positioning and low cost and low investment, while also compressing time and rushing schedules. In the end, a perfectly good project is made into something nondescript. Ideals areThe ideal is rich and full; reality is bare-bones!
The result of low-cost projects is that the quality of project "deliverables" is poor, which affects the quality of manufactured products and also fails to ensure the rationality of operating costs.
For a normally operating factory, everyone wants efficiency and profit. Where do efficiency and profit come from? Of course, from cost control. But cost control is not simply reducing raw and auxiliary material consumption or even reducing the quality of raw and auxiliary materials; it is not simply reducing spare parts inventory and equipment maintenance costs; and it is certainly not simply reducing the number of workers, increasing workers' hours, or even lowering workers' wages.
Well-managed enterprises are flooded with meetings and documents every day, one deviation after another, one document after another upgraded and trained, and the huge quality system is busy from dawn to dusk all day long, yet completely disconnected from the production workshop. The production workshop is still working from dawn to dusk, toiling like oxen and horses, and exhausting itself to increase output and reduce costs!
Many enterprises set "output, sales, cost, and profit" targets at the beginning of the year, and even assign "energy saving, consumption reduction, and cost reduction" targets to every department and every link.
If this continues for a long time, product quality will inevitably be impossible to ensure, and pursuing so-called low "cost" while departing from "quality" is no different from "a moth flying into the flame."