Create Quality Culture – not program
There are many quality management programs available. To achieve complete quality organization, we must utilize a combination of best practices from many quality management programs. The organization needs to be able to change, modify and adapt any process quickly and efficiently to meet customer demand for quality and satisfaction. One of the quality programs is Kaizen which offers a dynamic and continuous process improvement plan. It is Japanese for “change for the better”. It is a continuous improvement process in an effort to improve products, services and/or processes (1). It refers to philosophies focus on ‘continuous process improvement’ in many aspects of businesses from manufacturing to healthcare. This management concept took hold from the book of Masaaki Imai “Kaizen: The Key to Japan’s Competitive Success.” It aims to improve standardized processes and eliminate waste. Kaizen was implemented in many Japanese businesses after the World War II and later in the United States. The Kaizen principles are influenced in part by American business quality management programs and teachers such as Deming and have been used throughout the world (2). Every organization strides to bring quality and customer satisfaction regardless of the industry, but how they chose to implement it will determine the success and failure of the program.
To ensure continuous improvement and total quality of the product and/or services, an organization should not merely just implement and QM program and leave it. It must create a culture of quality that involves all employees. It should continuously be measured and modified to meet demand and enable the organization to compete in the global market. The idea is to teach employees how to learn to spot waste in daily processes and work with teams to propose resolutions. Better process improvement and efficiency adds value to the customer experience.
A ‘humanized approach’ is encouraged across the company and involvement of all employees from floor workers to the CEO is required for its success. It applies to all levels of the organization and intends to increase productivity and efficiency continually. By encouraging and developing a culture of quality and enabling employees to continuous improve their daily work and processes, organization will be able to compete and grow. Empowering employees to work in self managed style teams and improve the processes they encounter and interact daily directly improve the quality organization brings to their customers. Once employee(s) “understands the system…” said Deming, “…he will have a basis for judgment of his own decisions and for transformation of the organizations” The employee will “set an example” and “continually teach” other employees contributing to cross training and job enrichment.
A “Quality” organization is only successful when its employees are involved and work with it. They are the ones that ultimately make or break the organization – let’s ensure everyone is involved in the “system” and bring value and quality to the customer. In the globalized economy, successful companies value their customers and ensure they receive more than the expected service. Now more than ever, completion from abroad is challenging U.S. companies with developing and providing the products and service. Chinese manufacturing and service industries are no longer discounted as “trade-off between cost and quality”. They are now manufacturing top gadgets for the U.S. market – iPad one of the top selling products in the U.S. is manufactured in China (12).
Why an organization should implement QM?
Advances in technology have enabled organizations to automate many processes. Processes that took days and hours are done in a matter of minutes. Organization have been constantly strived to develop quality management principles into their daily processes from early twentieth century. From Walther Shewhart to Deming and onward, quality management philosophies have gone through multiple changes and modifications. In order to be more efficient, provide customer service and add value and quality to their products and service, organizations have been adapting and implementing many principles of quality management.
In today’s globalized economy (powered by technological innovations), quality management program culture should be part of the organization’s strategy, vision and goals. Without a quality culture in place, the organization will have a difficult time competing and surviving in the market. Customers demand quality and value from the organizations. Companies must provide quality products/services that meet and exceed customer requirements and ensure satisfaction.
In early 20th century, Walter A. Shewhart created one of the first quality management programs for manufacturing industry. It was a method for quality control for production, using statistical methods, which was later adapted and modified by Deming. Deming created a 14 point of attention for companies and utilized Shewhart’s methods in the 1950 onward in Japan with successful outcomes that shook the U.S. manufacturing industry (3). With the invention of automation and technology, as new products and services have developed and innovated, quality is the number one issue across the industries. Customers demand more quality and values for the products and services they receive. Competition from abroad has enabled customers to leave companies at the drop of a dime. Advanced in technology, led to globalization which has enabled companies to compete in multiple countries and reach their customers instantly. Technological innovations are on-going and organization must stay up to date with customer requirements, demands and active in continuous process improvement. Quality culture leads to satisfied customers – satisfied customers stay loyal.
Globalization has enabled competition from abroad and has created challenges for many organizations in the U.S. They must constantly change, modify and adapt processes and create new ways to reach their customers and meet their demands by providing quality products and services. This on-going demand from customers and competition from the market has brought tremendous amount of pressure on companies to tirelessly improve their processes and meet those challenges.
Organizations need a dynamic quality culture to meet these challenges and demands (4). To start the quality culture, Kaizen quality management cycle has been utilized by many companies across the globe. Its dynamic abilities allow the organization to develop dynamic process improvement methods by creating a culture of quality where everyone is involved. Here are steps and activities recommended by Kaizen principles to help the organization move toward a quality culture.
Kaizen Process Implementation
There is no single method of implementing Kaizen. Each company is different and must approach Kaizen implementation according to their organizations needs and requirements. Kaizen is recommended by Japan Humans Relations Association. The program aims at increasing productivity, quality and worker satisfaction (6) which leads to customer satisfaction and retention. An important key to implementing a successful Kaizen quality management program is the approval, involvement, and visibility of upper management which will indicate importance of quality culture. Quality culture begins with satisfied and happy employees. When employees are happy and involved with the company, they are more likely to contribute and adapt company values and goals (8). Involved employees who value their company will contribute to the quality and care of the customer. They are more likely to engage in improving their processes so the customer’s needs are met and exceeded. Continuous “issue identification” and “standardization of the processes” should be encouraged by the upper management. “Job enrichment can only be truly successful if planning includes support for all phases of the initiative (11)”.
Management’s involvement creates excitement among employees enabling better team engagement, creativity and productivity. They feel empowered and contribute positively to the overall success of the company by providing excellent service and quality products and services to the customers (internal and external). Empowered employees “continually teach” other employees and share knowledge across the organization. For example, in the Japanese firms employees are “organized in teams” and “making improvements in their own jobs” (9). When knowledge and information is openly shared in the company, they lead to more efficient workforce and high customer satisfaction. Here are some recommended suggestions for implementing Kaizen QM (7).
- Employees Empowered to identify problems, waste, or opportunity(ies) for process improvement and develop an action/improvement plan
- Employees implements the plan and improve the process identified
- The improvement is documented and available for further review
- Continue the cycle with employee empowerment and involvement
Management must encourage employee engagement and develop self managed teams. These teams should meet on regular bases (monthly) and openly discuss process improvement ideas and notify management as needed. An atmosphere of trust and openness throughout the organization should be a top priority for the upper management and executive team. They must empower and authorize each team with decision making powers that enable them to get involved with the company and share its values and goals. They have more opportunity to use their abilities and skills and positively affect the quality and customer satisfaction.
Members of the team should be accountable for each other and ensure everyone’s contributing to the project and process improvement. As these teams and employee work together, identify issues, plan and implement changes, they become cohesive and efficient. The more employees work together to identify and resolve issues and share ideas, the more they contribute to the quality of the product and/or service and growth of the company. These teams must stay focus on the process improvement plan and have clear goals. Each employee is empowered to identify problems and issues within their department’s processes and document them for further review and discussion amongst their teams. Once an issue has been identified and documented, teams/employees need to develop an improvement plan for each process improvement identified in the plan. These documentations should be reviewed and improvement plan(s) should be drawn. These plans must answer these questions: What is the issue identified? What process will be affected? Who is affected – the person closest to the process or many departments/people? Which department(s) will be affected? How long will the modification take? Are the supervisor/managers informed? How long will the improvement take?
Process improvement plans should be drawn up for any change – small or large. For example the plan can include a small process change from: “all customer calls must be documented” to “only calls that require escalation must be documented”. Documentation for process improvement plans must also include the following (10):
- Defining the problem
- Define where improvement is needed
- Prioritize the issues
- Ensure recommendations meet established standards
- Develop an action plan
- Measure processes and improve further if necessary
The improvement plan documentation and forms must be available to all employees in a shared drive or intranet site. These documents must be kept up-to-date with all modifications made according to company’s standards and procedures for future reference and audit purposes. After the issue has been identified and action/improvement plan documented, depending on the issue, an employee or the team start the implementation phase of the improvement plan. After the implementation phase, the process(s) is measured and results are compared to previous reports/data and further action taken if necessary. Teams and employees must continuously work closely with each other and identify process improvement ideas.
Conclusion
Every organization, in order to be successful has a quality management program in place. Their processes have gone through modification multiple times. They have measured the processes after program implementation and have seen progress in customer satisfaction. But after a while the program seems to fail and the company must implement another Six Sigma or ISO 9000 QM program to ensure efficiency and increased customer services – just to fail again. These organizations fail to realized that regardless of how many QM programs, or how ‘good’ the program is, if the employees are not involved – and/or the management is not ‘in’ it – the program will fail.
To be successful, the organization must encourage and work toward a “quality” culture. Every employee from the desk clerk to the CEO must get involved and contribute in continuous process improvement – continuously. See the following for guidelines on how to manage and improve processes throughout the organization:
- Standardization of the processes – improving and making small changes
- Measure processes and improve further if necessary
- Calculate measurements/processes against requirements
- Meet requirements and increase productivity and efficiency
- Continue the cycle
Continuous process improvement throughout the organization will lead to a culture of quality that bring value and quality to its products and services. When quality, care and added value is provided to the customer, they are more likely to recommend you than the competition. Quality. Culture. The system. We are all in it.
References
- Imai, Masaaki (1986). Kaizen: The Key to Japan’s Competitive Success. New York, NY, US: Random House.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masaaki_Imai
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_A._Shewhart
- http://www.epa.gov/QUALITY/qs-docs/r2-final.pdf
- Deming, W. Edwards. 1993. The New Economics for Industry, Government, Education
- http://www.1000advices.com/guru/processes_kaizen_quick-easy.html
- http://books.google.com/books?id=GOgSbN4QtWAC&lpg=PP1&dq=Kaizen%20Teian%201%20NEW%20by%20Japan%20Human%20Relations%20Association&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q&f=false
- http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100813121920.htm
- http://www.e.okayama-u.ac.jp/~kshimizu/downloads/iir.pdf
- http://www.indiana.edu/~uhrs/training/ca/performance.html
- http://edweb.sdsu.edu/people/arossett/pie/Interventions/jobdesign_1.htm
- http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=2252
