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Views for a
Change
Consultant
Q&A
H. James Harrington
Responds:
- If your organization is
strongly committed to quality there is little need for a
separate quality function. In a committed organization each
function-development engineering, executive management,
product engineering, manufacturing, sales and service-will
be able to handle its part of the quality system without
additional checks and balances. Executive management will
always read and use the quality reports in preference to
financial reports. Product engineering will ensure that the
design is manufacturable and determine with a high degree
of confidence that the product is reliable and will perform
to specifications throughout the product's life.
Manufacturing will ensure that all employees only perform
jobs they are trained to perform and will provide them with
all the time necessary to do their jobs correctly.
Manufacturing engineering will design the manufacturing
process so that every operation has a Cpk of 1.4 minimum.
The sales department will never promise to deliver a
product that will have to be expedited through the
manufacturing process, and, of course, they would never
tell a potential customer that the product would do
something that it was not designed to do. The purchasing
department will always select the supplier that provides
the very best quality regardless of the price because they
understand that your product cannot be better than the
parts that go into it. The information technology function
puts running the quality reports ahead of all other reports
including the financial reports and billing activities. The
major financial report is a poor-quality cost report that
covers both manufacturing and external quality cost. It
also includes all indirect poor-quality cost. That's what a
committed organization does all the time and with these
types of organizations a very small group of quality
professionals is needed. They have very little to do other
than organize the monthly quality top management reviews
and document their results.
- Oh yes, in these types of committed organizations that
are made up of trusted employees, the financial job is also
very simple. Payroll consists of rolling a barrel of money
out and everyone helps themselves to what they feel their
contribution is worth. Now, if you don't have this type of
organization, you will need a more formal quality
organization with the associated controls. I like to have a
quality assurance function headed up by a senior
vice-president of quality that reports to the COO. Quality
assurance is then divided into three
groups
- 1.
Quality Engineering
- They are
responsible for being part of the concurrent engineering
team. They certify the manufacturing process and define the
test plans and the quality reporting system. They prepare
the quality plan for each program and maintain the quality
manual.
- 2.
Quality Control
- This is the group
that audits to ensure that procedures are being followed by
manufacturing, engineering, finance, sales and service.
This ensures that corrective action is taken when
deviations are identified.
- 3.
Quality Laboratories
- These laboratories
include the Failure Analysis Laboratory, Calibration
Laboratory and receiving
inspection.
- This is a check and balance system that helps the
organization keep its commitment to quality at the
forefront of its operations. In this type of organization,
quality assurance is responsible for ensuring that the
customer gets what he or she expects and when the customer
is dissatisfied, quality assurance takes immediate action
to correct the problem and prevent it from
recurring.
Vincent Ventresca responds
June 2000 News for
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