Be a Trendsetter

Quality professionals should consider expanding their networking efforts into the business realm. Why? Our organizations expect us not only to eliminate the costs of poor quality, but also help optimize profitability.

The only way to do that is by shedding plant-centric mindsets and infusing quality concepts into our organizational cultures. The only way to do that is by becoming the trendsetters. We must lead by example.

What would you do?

Leading by example means sticking with your quality mindset wherever you are and in everything you do. It means infusing quality concepts such as 5S and failure mode and effects analysis into how you approach situations, even if you don’t create tape marks or use special forms to assign numerical values to each potential risk.

To see whether you lead by example, think about what you would do in these situations:
1. You’re at an organized gathering, helping yourself to a cup of coffee. A small trash container has been placed at the end of the beverage table, but it’s not in view when you’re looking for a place to dispose of your empty coffee creamer pod. Before you arrived at the table, someone else apparently solved this dilemma by dumping his or her empty pod into a nearly empty metal bowl that had obviously been put into service to dispense full creamer pods rather than to collect empty ones. Other attendees followed suit, dumping used coffee stirrers, empty creamer pods and tea bag envelopes amongst a handful of still-full pods. Do you follow suit, assuming this has become an accepted process? Or do you step up to initiate change by informing the waitstaff, removing the bowl or taking another action to separate the right way from the wrong one?
2. While you’re in line at a lunch buffet, the person directly ahead of you tries to replace a small set of tongs into a bowl of shredded cheese, but misses. The tongs clatter to the floor. Do you apply the five-second rule by picking up the tongs and putting them back into service? Or do you flag down a wait staff member to take away the tongs and replace them?

The assumption for the first scenario is that most of you would follow suit, using the metal bowl to discard your beverage table trash. The majority of people, after all, are followers rather than leaders. That’s just a fact of human nature. Besides, you’re a guest at this gathering; you’re not working.

But think about it for just a minute. Trash on top of a table isn’t acceptable at home. Why should you accept it anywhere else, under any circumstance? If just one person does the right thing, others will follow suit. As a quality professional, try to get in the habit of showing your colleagues the value of doing the right thing, whether you’re auditing a manufacturing plant or attending a business luncheon.

The assumption for the second scenario is that most of you would have the tongs removed. There are situations in which people who are employed in the field of quality applied the five-second rule instead.

If you’re not sure why that would pose a problem, force yourself to look at a much larger picture. Many manufacturing plants have distinct rules about dropped parts. Until and unless those parts are proved to remain uncontaminated and undamaged, they must be segregated from good parts and considered nonconforming.

Now think about that set of tongs again. You don’t know what’s on the floor where they landed. Microscopic contaminants are still contaminants. Animal feces and other germ-bearing things I’d rather not think about could have been deposited on that floor by any number of people’s shoes.

If a quality professional is willing to put his or her colleagues’ food at risk through potential contamination, it seems reasonable to assume that same person also could be willing to turn a blind eye to a dropped part—or worse, put it back amongst usable stock. If a quality professional is doing that, count on everyone else in the organization doing it, too.

As quality professionals, it is up to us to be the clarion ringers and set the tone for a quality mindset in our organizations. We need to live and breathe quality, and set the example for everyone else in our organizations. If we don’t, no one will. If no one takes the lead in setting the example, our organizations are doomed to repeat failures, or at the very least to never discover what it means to truly optimize profitability.

True quality = efficiency

But what does it mean, in the quality realm, to optimize profitability? The answer is simpler than you might think. It’s about efficiency—and that means being lean.
It’s a tough market out there. Organizations that don’t go lean don’t get ahead. Regrettably, some organizations still seem to think going lean is all about cutting heads; but efficiency is the real driver. Without efficiency, process quality—and, by default, product quality—can take a significant hit.

In the automotive industry, the worst quality hits can lead to recalls. Guess what? Recalls can cost far more than whatever was saved in the first place by cutting heads. True lean efforts involve developing efficient processes free of waste and always getting it right the first time. Today, process quality matters more than product quality because the latter is the direct result of the former.

Quality toolboxes should be restocked to include business concepts, especially those that are intricately linked to the costs of doing business. In turn, quality concepts also must take root in organizational cultures. Those folks in finance who are always cutting budgets and complaining about overspending should take another look at the costs that might be hidden in their own inefficient processes. If the HR department is more heavily staffed or budgeted on the recruiting and hiring side than elsewhere, the processes targeting employee retention are probably inefficient—it’s costly to fuel a revolving door.

Setting the example

How can we get business colleagues to see the critical links between efficiency and quality? By setting an example. As quality professionals, we have a responsibility to put quality first. Don’t be so shy, lazy or impatient that you accept problems. Don’t play "follow the leader" and use a creamer bowl for a trash container because that’s what everyone else is doing. Be the leader. Raise your hand, raise your voice or just take the reins and start driving teams in the right direction.

Reference: Quality Progress