Understanding Change in a Quality Culture

Clock with time for change written on itIn any improvement process, managing the influence of change and the anti-change culture that will continually try to raise its head will be one of the most ardent tasks. Learn to deal with this as effectively as you do the project management itself. There are many well-written books on the subject of change in every category of change that you could imagine. Below is a compiled list of items about change that are relevant to implementing process change.

When examining change it is necessary to understand the stages of change that have been identified. It is interesting to note that these stages take place in varying degrees in different people, but are exactly the same whether the change is a different process in the workplace or the death of someone close. You should be able to identify and deal with the levels of acceptance encountered. Here are the stages and some tips on how to deal with them.

Denial

A wonderful self-preservation response. It is characterised by minimising the situation, and saying (or thinking) things like „This isn’t happening”, „It won’t help”, and „There’s no problem.” You may find the person will avoid talking about the situation, or even make up excuses for not attending meetings.

  • Explain the denial to commitment process that you went through to get where you are.
  • Present the situation openly and allow a lot of time for questions and answers.
  • Have a training session on change management.
  • Present a caring and understanding front. Though this may not be your normal attitude, during this process it will be invaluable.
  • Be a broken record with memos, thank you emails, posters, or anything else that presents your platform in a positive light.

Resistance

It is at this stage that you may see the active signs of sabotage. They may be passive, as in „I’ll just do it my way anyway”, along with a lot of whining-crabbing about the new systems. Or they may manifest in physical methods of sabotage depending on the character of the person. Be aware that these are real threats to the success of any project. But for the most part, those who fall into this category will show a lack of interest and a lot of time spent on finding reasons it won’t work.

  • Listen! And I mean listen. You can hear more in the tone and inflection of what is being said as well as the body language than you can imagine.
  • Solicit Response. People love to know that they are being heard and even more that their suggestions are valid. Many of them are. These are the people who will make or break the installation, let them know they have input to the outcome.
  • Acknowledge Feelings. Let them know you went through a similar process in getting where you are. Validate that they are not alone.

Exploration

People will begin to see some of the good that may occur in the situation, and will generally vacillate between thinking that it might be ok and that it is still a bad idea. But, the up side is that you are beginning to get them on your side and they will begin to make effort to get the changes in place.

  • Facilitate. People are more open at this point. Take advantage of it. Be your own commercial! Challenge people to find a better way within the new system. It gets them thinking about the next round of change and off the current.
  • Reward forward thinking with mounds of compliments. Praise the desired behaviour.
  • Seek out new possibilities. Have brainstorming sessions. It does wonders for everyone’s moral.

Commitment

You’ve got buy-in and will see productivity through the changes. People can see the bigger picture and the opportunity that the change affords.

When dealing with this from a management point of view, it is important to remember several things. These feelings are very real and they happen at different times for different areas of the organisation. Do not expect to spend several months agonising over the commitment to purchase expensive software only to turn around and expect everyone else to do a Tarzan swing from denial to commitment in a week. Remember the process you had to get through in order to accept the change. Others will require the same; allow the process to manifest itself in others. You can facilitate the process by understanding it and helping others to get through.

  • Recognise and acknowledge those who get there. Give them more opportunity to improve the process and celebrate their victories.
  • Inspire people to get others on board. Teach them about the process and how to recognise the people in various stages and how to move them along.
  • CELEBRATE!!!!! Most important. When you have achieved goals, let everyone know and celebrate, celebrate, celebrate. When people know their efforts will be recognised and appreciated, you will have fewer problems in future change.

Remember that we have a tremendous amount of information to process every day. There is more information in a single daily paper today than a person in the 15th century processed in a lifetime. Change takes form in one of three types; that which we cannot control, that which we can, and that which we can influence. Being positive and trying to move things from cannot control to can influence helps in the ability to manage the changes that occur. But, there will always be those things you cannot control and acceptance of that fact is the only road to remaining sane.

Source: http://www.projectsmart.co.uk ,  John W. Wright III
Reklama

Key: Quality Management Plan

The Quality Management Plan defines the acceptable level of quality, which is typically defined by the customer, and describes how the project will ensure this level of quality in its deliverables and work processes. Quality management activities ensure that:

  • Products are built to meet agreed- upon standards and requirements
  • Work processes are performed efficiently and as documented
  • Non-conformances found are identified and appropriate corrective action is taken

quality

Quality Management plans apply to project deliverables and project work processes. Quality control activities monitor and verify that project deliverables meet defined quality standards. Quality assurance activities monitor and verify that the processes used to manage and create the deliverables are followed and are effective.

Quality Plan Components
The Quality Management Plan describes the following quality management components:

  • Quality objectives
  • Key project deliverables and processes to be reviewed for satisfactory quality level
  • Quality standards
  • Quality control and assurance activities
  • Quality roles and responsibilities
  • Quality tools
  • Plan for reporting q uality control and assurance problems

Rationale/Purpose
The purpose of developing a quality plan at the Stage 3 level is to elicit the customer’s expectations in terms of quality and prepare a proactive quality management plan to meet those expectations.

The Quality Management Plan helps the project manager determine if deliverables are being produced to an acceptable quality level and if the project processes used to manage and create the deliverables are effective and properly applied.

Who is involved
Project Manager
Project Team
Customer
Project Sponsor

Result
Quality Management Plan segment of the Project Plan

Management Strategy

Managers and employees alike need to earn the respect of team members, colleagues and company leaders. As we all know, respect is not something that comes automatically with a job title – it must be earned. And it’s not only for the management team; every employee will achieve more success and have more confidence at work when they know they have earned the respect of their colleagues.

consulting

Here are a few guiding principles to earn respect, and build success, at work.

Listen to Your Inner Voice – Each of us makes decisions based on our personal compass of what is good or bad, right or wrong, fair or unfair. Particularly while practicing Human Resources, it seems like there are so many rules, there must be one for every situation! But more often than not, we are interpreting the law and also doing the right thing. This is where a strong moral compass is one of the best tools in your management belt.

Wait 24 Hours… Sometimes – Today we are so connected through technology and our work demands quick responses. When considering options or weighty decisions, remember you (and others impacted) will have to live with the decision much longer than it takes to make it. Although we all have to be ready to turn on a dime sometimes, do not underestimate the power of thoughtfulness.

Pick Your Battles – When working in a team environment, the decision does not always need to go your way. Respectfully agreeing with a leader or the group shows that you can successfully manage change while demonstrating adaptability.

Bring Something To The Table –Be the best you can at what you do, and don’t be afraid to speak up when you have a good idea. Make sure that you are delivering expertise the company will always value. Think constantly about your contribution to the organization and your team.

Keep Your Word – If you commit to a deliverable or a deadline, stick to it. A key element of keeping your word is proactively renegotiating a deadline in advance if you realize you will not be able to reach it. You will gain the respect of all your colleagues due to your reliability. If you come through for others, they will usually come through for you.

Be a Supportive Teammate – Managers should be develop and support their teams. Colleagues should also champion and congratulate one another on accomplishments. You will foster trust and loyalty through your own generosity.

Give Second Chances (Including to Yourself!) – Every employee – including the boss – is going to have a few missteps. When a member of the team is asked to put themselves out on a limb or try something new, they also need to feel there will be a safety net of forgiveness backing them up. Just be candid and admit when one of your teammates, or you, made a mistake, move on, and don’t let it happen too frequently.

source: http://hrservices.sharedhr.com

Objectives of Quality Management System Certification

Objectives of Quality Management System Certification

ISO 9001(1)1QMS standard may be a set of quality management tips that are adopted by thousands of organizations round the world. It provides processes and procedures to assist corporations improve the standard of the merchandise or service they supply. So as to attain ISO accreditation, businesses have to be compelled to demonstrate to meet variety of objectives for effective QMS implementation.

Senior Management Commitment

Effective Quality Management System requires that the complete commitment and backing of senior management may be a very important component of achieving ISO accreditation. While not the complete support of the senior management team, the creation and implementation of quality management systems and processes can lack the impetus needed to form them winning. This will increase the chance that any enforced procedures will quickly fail, so compromising quality.


Design Process

ISO 9001 states that everyone comes should be planned completely and with quality as a priority in any respect stages within the life cycle of the merchandise, from style to manufacture to maintenance. Any changes or alterations within the style of the merchandise have to be compelled to be QMS 9001 documentation and recorded, and therefore the data of the amendment communicated to any or all relevant parties.


Supplier Vetting

It may be requirements of QMS 9001 that every one new supplier is completely vetted before any contracts are awarded. This is to determine the standard of service and products that the provider can give; similarly as guaranteeing that they need the resources necessary to satisfy your demand. This can lead to long and productive operating relationships with suppliers.


Inspection and Testing

All materials and product utilized in the creation and producing of an item should be completely inspected before use. This is often to confirm that they’re fit purpose, and every one testing records should be maintained and filed. Before a product is free to the general public, it should endure final testing and attain the sign-off of senior management.

Internal Audits

All businesses seeking QMS certification should do regular and thorough internal audits to check that the processes and procedures that are enforced among the corporate are operating and being well maintained. Any shortcomings, discrepancies or areas of improvement should be communicated to senior management and a point in time given for any issues to be corrected.

Tips for Improvement of Quality in your company

No doubt, we live in an imperfect world: People make mistakes and machines break. The goal is to minimize this so that the client is enchanted and reorders. You can do that through a relentless focus on quality. Improving quality will save your firm money because you won’t need to do things to cover up old mistakes. Improving quality will raise your employees’ engagement because people like being on a high performance team.

How do you make sure quality is exceptional at your firm? Here are  tips to improve quality fast.

Measure and Measure Some More

Two key performance indicators (KPIs) you should deploy today are quality escapes and quality captured. Determine which bucket quality mistakes fall into. The first bucket is comprised of mistakes that were internally „captured” by your team so the client was never aware of them. Captured quality errors aren’t as bad because the client never knew — maybe they suffered a delayed delivery, but that’s it. Your client is not injured by the stumble.

The second bucket consists of quality issues that „escaped” your operation and were discovered by the client. These escaped quality defects are horrific. Your client is exposed to your firm’s failure, which undermines the long term vendor relationship. But measuring these mistakes transparently will bring your team’s attention to these issues and you’ll see improvement from the spotlight effect: The team will understand they are important.

Focus on Process,  Not People

Every employee comes to work to do a good job. In most cases, the defect is the process, not the person you trust. Remember that, and fix it by adding process steps or new checks to the system. Don’t make it a game of „who screwed this up?” That will deflate the team. Everyone will cower in fear and point fingers without ever getting to the root cause.

Meet Weekly

Initially the meetings will be long and tedious. You need to discuss with all the players each quality issue that occurred, and get to the root cause. Over time–less time than you think–the meetings will get shorter, as processes are strengthened and systems get more robust. Confidence will build as people see the systems are catching errors and eliminating heartburn.

Create a Quality Chart

Sort the biggest quality issues by category and focus in on the big issues. Work them till they get to be small issues. Don’t focus as much time on the unusual quality issues; spend your time in the places with the most frequent problems.

Make It Public

Place your quality results in your lunchroom. Everyone should see this is a company emphasis and you want to improve in a transparent way. The daily, visible reminder will demonstrate your commitment to quality to the people who impact it every day: your team.

source: http://www.inc.com

Continuous Improvement – Way of Developing New Products

Continuous Improvement – Way of Developing New Products

Many companies pursuing lean transformation and continuous improvement are focusing on the customer fulfillment operations to improve quality and delivery while reducing costs.

future

Organizations are working to reduce lead time, improve quality, and make their manufacturing and distribution operations more efficient in an effort to cut costs. While these improvements are important, they are not sufficient in today’s globally competitive manufacturing world.

In many companies today, direct labor is a single-digit percentage of the cost of goods sold (COGS), with purchased materials and overhead burden making up over 90% of their COGS. Even with these cost breakdowns, many continuous improvement efforts still focus on trying to eliminate waste in the manufacturing process to use labor more efficiently to reduce labor content. These efforts will produce some small incremental improvements in the COGS, but a much better opportunity exists early in the new product design cycle.

It is estimated by some product development experts that 80% of the final cost of a new product is determined in the first 20% of the design cycle where the product concept and initial design philosophy are chosen. If you involve your manufacturing organization and your suppliers at these very early stages of the cycle and form a concurrent engineering design team, you have the opportunity to design products for manufacturing and assembly, both at your suppliers and in your own operations as well as using their expertise in your designs. Using such design-for-manufacturing techniques as reduced parts count, substitution of molded plastics or pressed and sintered powdered metal parts for machined metal and poka-yoke designs to eliminate assembly errors, your new products can be developed with a radically lower final cost of goods sold.

People from your manufacturing operations are a great resource to use with your product design teams to offer suggestions on how designs can be manufactured and how costs can be reduced by making products easier to assemble, with less chance for quality issues and their resultant scrap and rework costs. Manufacturing engineers can plan how to produce a new product while it’s still in design when options for processing methods and equipment are still available. Operators can evaluate their ability to assemble new products and can offer suggestions on visibility and accessibility of components before designs are frozen.

Manufacturing personnel who are familiar with existing products can suggest part substitutions to increase commonality of parts rather than having all unique components. A unique fastener that is out of stock will shut down a product operation just as surely as a custom casting or machined component, but common fasteners can often be designed in from the start.

Your suppliers, working with your product development teams, can suggest design alternatives that often reduce a product’s material cost by up to 50%. Rather than just giving them a component specification to quote, use their expertise to suggest alternate materials, design options, different fabrication techniques, and tolerances that really matter to reduce your product’s component costs. Too often, suppliers are not trusted and not involved until the design is complete and your organization has lost the opportunity to exploit the supplier’s expertise to minimize component costs by being involved with the design team from the very beginning.

There are a number of organizations utilizing concurrent engineering design teams today to incorporate the knowledge and unique experience of suppliers, manufacturing engineers, quality professionals, production and distribution personnel, accounting/finance folks and marketing/sales people to bring increased knowledge and expertise to the team to get better designs at a lower product cost. These teams are part of the design process from the very beginning, at the ideation phase, to develop new products that are better quality and lower cost than those designed exclusively behind the curtain of new-product engineering. Don’t forget to involve your suppliers and operations organization in your new product-development process at the very start.

source: http://www.industryweek.com

Revised ISO 9001 Standard Moves Closer to Completion

Revised ISO 9001 Standard Moves Closer to Completion

The revised standard will retain its strong focus on a process-based approach to quality management systems.

quality management

There is change afoot with respect to the ISO 9001 standard on quality management systems.

It is not unexpected change. All ISO standards are reviewed every three to five years to determine whether revisions are needed to keep the standards current and relevant in the marketplace, according to the International Organization for Standardization.

ISO 9001 is in the late stages of the revision process, with a new edition expected in 2015.

There are several changes outlined in the ISO 9001: 2015 edition, although the standard will retain its strong focus on a process-based approach to produce desired outcomes, explained Nigel Croft, chair of the ISO subcommittee revising the standard, in a Web update. „…which in the case of a quality management systems means, of course, consistent products and services consistently meeting customer needs and expectations.”

The changes focus on three concepts:

  1. The process approach will strongly emphasize that the quality management system has to be woven into and fully aligned with an organization’s strategic direction.
  2. Superimposed on the system of processes is the PDCA (plan-do-check-act) methodology, which will apply both to individual processes as well as the quality management system as a whole.
  3. An overall focus on risk-based thinking aimed at „preventing undesirable outcomes,” such as non-conforming products and services.

A recent vote approved the latest draft of the revised ISO 9001 standard, which has since moved to the next stage – Final Draft International Standard. In his update, Croft explained that the subcommittee will review comments that came in during the last vote and produce a final draft, which then will be voted on.

While ISO itself does not certify organizations to ISO standards, Croft noted that there would be a three-year transition period for companies to migrate to the updated standard once the new edition is published.

He also suggested that organizations may want to review the draft rather than wait until the new edition of the standard is published.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JIMyvpP0tw#t=319

Source: http://www.industryweek.com

Main Steps to Improve Manufacturing Quality

There is no better cost to eliminate than the cost of poor quality.

stairs

Good managers seek to contain costs in the manufacturing environment. There is no better cost to eliminate than the cost of poor quality. Scrap material and lost labor hours add no value to the operation.

In order to best eliminate these wastes, a strategic approach to quality improvement is essential. By following these five steps, quality can be improved in a meaningful, sustainable way.

Use a team mindset

Quality won’t be sustainably improved by individuals. To really make lasting and meaningful change in manufacturing processes, it will take a team-based approach. By involving multiple disciplines in the search for improved quality, a variety of perspectives is obtained. Also of importance is knowledge of process history. Why is the process the way it is today? There must be a reason or cause, and that reason should be considered so as not to repeat a problem of days gone by. By considering history and group perspective, solid improvements can be obtained.

Define quality from the customer perspective

Too often, staff within a manufacturing environment want to make a product “better” but don’t really know what better means. With additional cost, we almost always can make a product better. But is additional cost desirable by the customer even if it means better product life? Someone in the organization should serve as the customer advocate. Typically this voice can come from the sales or marketing departments. Use the customers’ perspective to define what the best-in-class product would be and meet those requirements while minimizing cost.

Develop understanding of the Cost of Quality

The cost to fix a defect in the field once it reaches a customer is dramatically higher than the cost to fix the source of the problem before it is created. It is essential that the manufacturing staff be trained to understand the cost multipliers involved with warranty repair or replacement and cost of damaged reputation. Once the staff take this perspective, a desire to find root cause for problem solving is inherently developed.

Solve problems completely

All too often, manufacturing quality improvements fix the symptoms of failure rather than the root cause. This can be done by adding quality inspection steps or rework stations that make it more efficient to fix defects. Instead, a true understanding of root cause should be developed within the teams. When teams develop the ability (through Ishikawa, fault tree, or five-why analysis) to ascertain root cause of defects in the manufacturing process along with a “killer test” that verifies the ability to turn-on and turn-off the problem in the manufacturing process, true solutions to problems will be created that will not allow the return of the issue.

Employ strong process discipline

Throughout the quality improvement process, it is essential that strong process discipline is employed. Depending on the product that is being manufactured, deviation without proper team cooperation and anticipation of the change could have dire quality repercussions. While the organization should avoid cumbersome bureaucracy that inhibits innovation, it is essential that some structure be employed to maintain consistency and an understanding of the way the product is produced during that time period so that root cause can also be identified later if new problems arise as a consequence of the change.

By following these above steps, good management teams can develop great quality programs within their organizations.

source: http://www.industryweek.com

Principles of Total Quality Management,

TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT (TQM)
tqm

TQM can be defined as the management of initiatives and procedures that are aimed at achieving the delivery of quality products and services.

A number of key principles can be identified in defining TQM, including:

Executive Management – Top management should act as the main driver for TQM and create an environment that ensures its success.

Training – Employees should receive regular training on the methods and concepts of quality.

Customer Focus – Improvements in quality should improve customer satisfaction.

Decision Making – Quality decisions should be made based on measurements.

Methodology and Tools – Use of appropriate methodology and tools ensures that non-conformances are identified, measured and responded to consistently.

Continuous Improvement – Companies should continuously work towards improving manufacturing and quality procedures.

Company Culture – The culture of the company should aim at developing employees ability to work together to improve quality.

Employee Involvement – Employees should be encouraged to be pro-active in identifying and addressing quality related problems.

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