Quality is everybody's responsibility

Do you think we still need Quality Dept if everybody owns quality? Appreciate a comment

I would say, in the context of Dr. Deming's theories, that a matrixed organization that is trained in quality is important. He specifically proposed a matrixed organization for the conduct of statistics - that there should be a master level company statistician, with statistical educated people spread through the organization with a "dotted line" relation ship back to the master.

Many companies failed at attempts to have worker organized teams and quality circles as no guidance was given. Here are the keys to the plant - go forth and prosper.

There is also the "safety override" function of Quality (or Contractor Assurance). There is one example I am aware of where line management wanted once again to bandaid a system crucial to the company's mission - and Contractor Assurance took a stand and said - NO - we are going to FIX that system. Yes, it took some time and money - but even line management admitted in the end, it was nice to have the system working and not causing work stoppages right and left. Obviously the Quality (Contractor Assurance / Performance Assurance / Conduct of Operations / whatever) manager had the authority to override the decision to bandaid at the C-suite level.

The response 'Everyone owns quality', while technically correct, is also the politically correct answer. The department that needs to feel ownership of quality is Operations, meaning whoever produces the goods or services that the organization supplies. If Ops doesn't feel that they own quality, then there will be a constant cat & mouse game with the Quality Dept that will destroy quality and increase costs.

The Quality Dept then becomes the meter that tells whether we have achieved quality. Having pointed out a problem, however, the Quality Dept cannot smugly retreat to their offices. They must assist with the solution, otherwise they will be perceived as the Police.

This type of Strong Quality Culture does not happen in an organization by chance. It has to be built. How do you build a Strong Quality Culture? It's starts with a decision that it is necessary for survival.

Many leaders don't realize that their organization has a culture. It's true. Whether you designed it or not, your organization has a culture. Now the question is, 'is it the culture you want?'

John Predmore said:

Dr. Deming also said "We are being ruined by the best efforts of people doing the wrong thing." There must coordination of quality objectives and efforts to avoid different interest groups pulling in different directions or sub-optimizing.

Click to expand...

The hidden agenda

Mike S. said:

Here's another one....

"Everyone is in Sales!"

Click to expand...

A good one too? everybody has to sell their skillset.

normhowe said:

The response 'Everyone owns quality', while technically correct, is also the politically correct answer. The department that needs to feel ownership of quality is Operations, meaning whoever produces the goods or services that the organization supplies. If Ops doesn't feel that they own quality, then there will be a constant cat & mouse game with the Quality Dept that will destroy quality and increase costs.

The Quality Dept then becomes the meter that tells whether we have achieved quality. Having pointed out a problem, however, the Quality Dept cannot smugly retreat to their offices. They must assist with the solution, otherwise they will be perceived as the Police.

This type of Strong Quality Culture does not happen in an organization by chance. It has to be built. How do you build a Strong Quality Culture? It's starts with a decision that it is necessary for survival.

Many leaders don't realize that their organization has a culture. It's true. Whether you designed it or not, your organization has a culture. Now the question is, 'is it the culture you want?'

Click to expand...

In many cases both the Quality and Production departments report to an Operations manager, or a plant manager, or something similar. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with this, but it often leads to conflicting priorities, which is the real problem in this regard. The production manager is being told "Get it out the door--we have to make the month!!" while the quality manager is hit over the head if something slips by.

Jim Wynne said:

In many cases both the Quality and Production departments report to an Operations manager, or a plant manager, or something similar. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with this, but it often leads to conflicting priorities, which is the real problem in this regard. The production manager is being told "Get it out the door--we have to make the month!!" while the quality manager is hit over the head if something slips by.

Click to expand...

THIS, IMO, is the post of the day. Maybe the post of the week.

If there is a "risk analysis" done, formally or informally, guess where they are willing to tolerate more risk? On the side of missing "the monthly shipment $ goal" or on the side of missing "the quality goal".

In many cases both the Quality and Production departments report to an Operations manager, or a plant manager, or something similar. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with this, but it often leads to conflicting priorities, which is the real problem in this regard. The production manager is being told "Get it out the door--we have to make the month!!" while the quality manager is hit over the head if something slips by.

Click to expand...

This is where genuine top-down quality management is lacking, and the importance of viewing and documenting systemic quality issues. In addition to addressing the CA for individual noncompliance issues, the quality department should be documenting and tracking these individual incidents to look for commonality and present to upper management the need for CA for these systemic issues. Many times, we all get into the mode of viewing the trees instead of the forest, and don't recognize that actions need to be addressed at a higher level. The greatest tool for getting upper managements buy-in and involvement for dealing with these systemic issues is documenting the total cost (including the impact to schedule when the customer receives noncompliant product). A Quality Department can drive management involvement, and top-down quality management but it takes time and a significant amount of effort. Of course, upper management could also react by eliminating the complainers in the QA department, but that is up to them.

ddhartma said:

The greatest tool for getting upper managements buy-in and involvement for dealing with these systemic issues is documenting the total cost

Click to expand...

While I wholeheartedly agree that we should assist top management in realizing the total cost of decisions, most organizations have no idea of accounting for the cost of non-quality; even ISO's attempt in creating an ISO Guidance Standard on the subject, ISO 10014:2021 - Quality management systems — Managing an organization for quality results — Guidance for realizing financial and economic benefits is a pathetic document. On top of that, most quality professionals out there are not really conversant in business financials. In the real world, as Jim stated the "when in doubt, ship it out" motto prevails. Top management will always seek short term financial results/gratification.

Sidney Vianna said:

In the real world, as Jim stated the "when in doubt, ship it out" motto prevails. Top management will always seek short term financial results/gratification.

Click to expand...

This may happen sometimes, but the last sentence is an overly broad generalization that assumes all management is very dumb with no understanding of risk.
Quality professionals should maintain some humility - we don't always know better than management.

jmech said:

This may happen sometimes, but the last sentence is an overly broad generalization that assumes all management is very dumb with no understanding of risk.

Click to expand...

No is saying or suggesting that all top managers are "very dumb" and have "no understanding of risk." There are enough of them though, to keep this forum going strong for all these years.

jmech said:

Quality professionals should maintain some humility - we don't always know better than management.

Click to expand...

But god help us if we do.