Planning As Tool For Effective QMS

Definition

Systematic process that translates quality policy into measurable objectives and requirements, and lays down a sequence of steps for realizing them within a specified timeframe.

Companies want to produce quality work that they're happy with and customers can appreciate. One way to do so is a process known as quality planning. Come along as we learn what quality planning is, the process, and what tools are valuable in the ISO 9001 certification,

Quality Planning Defined

Meet Molly. Molly just found out that she will be the new leader for an upcoming project. Because this is her first project, she decides to do some research on how to effectively lead a project. The first place she starts is by determining the most important aspects of the project; essentially, she is determining which standards are necessary in order to successfully complete the project. Molly learns that she needs to identify what standards are relevant to the project and how she and her team will meet them. This is known as quality planning and is the focus of this lesson.

Quality planning is the task of determining what factors are important to a project and figuring out how to meet those factors. Such factors often include the resources that will be used, the steps needed to complete the project and any other specifications. So for Molly, this means she needs to plan what resources the project will need, determine the cost of those resources, plan a timeline for completing the project, outline the steps she and her team will take, and she will need to assign the tasks and responsibilities to each person.

 Process

“Quality planning,” as used here, is a structured process for developing products (both goods and services) that ensures that customer needs are met by the final result. The tools and methods of quality planning are incorporated along with the technological tools for the particular product being developed and delivered. Designing a new automobile requires automotive engineering and related disciplines, developing an effective care path for juvenile diabetes will draw on the expert methods of specialized physicians, and planning a new approach for guest services at a resort will require the techniques of an experienced hotelier. All three need the process, methods, tools, and techniques of quality planning to ensure that the final designs for the automobile, diabetic care, and resort services not only fulfill the best technical requirements of the relevant disciplines but also meet the needs of the customers who will purchase and benefit from the products.

The Quality Planning Problem

The quality planning process and its associated methods, tools, and techniques have been developed Because in the history of modern society, organizations have rather universally demonstrated a consistent failure to produce the goods and services that unerringly delight their customers. As a customer, everyone has been dismayed time and time again when flights are delayed, radioactive contamination spreads, medical treatment is not consistent with best practices, a child’s toy fails to function, a new piece of software is not as fast or user-friendly as anticipated, government responds with glacial speed (if at all), or a home washing machine with the latest high-tech gadget delivers at higher cost clothes that are no cleaner than before. These frequent, large quality gaps are really the compound result of a number of smaller gaps illustrated in Figure 3.1. The first component of the quality gap is the understanding gap, that is, lack of understanding of what the customer needs. Sometimes this gap opens up because the producer simply fails to consider who the customers are and what they need. More often the gap is there because the supplying organization has erroneous confidence in its ability to understand exactly what the customer really needs. The final perception gap in Figure 3.1 also arises from a failure to understand the customer and the customer needs. Customers do not experience a new suit of clothes or the continuity in service from a local utility simply based on the technical merits of the product. Customers react to how they perceive the good or service provides them with a benefit.

3.2 SECTION THREE

The second constituent of the quality gap is a design gap. Even if there were perfect knowledge about customer needs and perceptions, many organizations would fail to create designs for their goods and services that are fully consistent with that understanding. Some of this failure arises from the fact that the people who understand customers and the disciplines they use for understanding customer needs are often systematically isolated from those who actually create the designs. In addition, designers—whether they design sophisticated equipment or delicate human services—often lack the simple tools that would enable them to combine their technical expertise with an understanding of the customer needs to create a truly superior product. The third gap is the process gap. Many splendid designs fail because the process by which the physical product is created or the service is delivered is not capable of conforming to the design consistently time after time. This lack of process capability is one of the most persistent and bedevilling failures in the total quality gap. The fourth gap is the operations gap. The means by which the process is operated and controlled may create additional deficiencies in the delivery of the final good or service. ISO 9001 consultants can provide cost effective guidance and play an important role in the quality management System

Role of HRM in effective implementation of QMS

When a business organization  lacks  in  the human resources with  correct  attitude and capability for  designing and operating the business processes that fulfill the customer expectations, the QMS may fail to deliver any tangible results.  This is the reason, why ISO 9001 :2015  has   the HRM principles embedded in the  basic structure.  People oriented philosophy is apparent in the following  quality management  principles: 

• QMP2   principle of leadership,
• QMP 3  principle  of people  engagement
• QMP 7 principle of relationship management

The international  standard gives a lot of importance to the human aspect of an organization. Enthusiastic  teams  of  trained  and motivated employees can ensure that the company  achieves business purpose and  QMS objectives by supporting the system whole heartedly.

HRM functions include

• defining the organization structure,  authority and  responsibilities of the employee roles,
• clear communication of these roles  and job descriptions to employees,
• determining skills and abilities(competence, experience , education ) needed for each role,
• evaluating competence of employees and building competence through training,
• evaluating the effectiveness of training
• managing performance and compensation to motivate the workforce and
• enhancing employee engagement .

Detailed  HRM requirements of  ISO 9001 certification

Planning for  ISO 9001 certification should be done with active  involvement of HR professionals as well as ISO 9001 consultants. Detailed clauses affecting  HRM are mentioned below. 

ISO 9001:2015, in clause 4.4 d requires resources (including human resources) needed  for the business  processes be determined. Clause 4.4e requires  that authorities and responsibilities be assigned for all processes in a very clear manner.

Clause 5.1.1 states that  the top management of the enterprise must  display leadership with commitment by

1. accepting  accountability for  maintaining effectiveness of the QMS,

      b. making sure that  quality policy is established along with quality objectives, (quality policy must be fully aligned to strategic direction and  business environment( context)

c.  communicating quality policy to  ensure understanding  and application

d  integrating   QMS into enterprise  processes

e creating  employee awareness in favor of  process approach

f providing  resources for  QMS including human resources

g promoting  employee awareness of total quality management  and need for conformity to QMS requirements

h achieving business results through effectiveness of QMS

I motivating, directing, engaging  and supporting  all people to contribute to QMS effectiveness  

J  supporting and promoting  improvement throughout the enterprise

K   providing   support to different  management  roles for leadership  in areas of  their  responsibility towards QMS

Delegating authority and responsibility for QMS

Clause 5.3 stipulates that authorities as well as responsibilities for  roles relevant to QMS must be clearly assigned, with clear communication for understanding. This delegation is for

A.  ensuring conformity to requirements

B.  making enterprise QMS processes to deliver  intended outputs

C.  reporting to top management about QMS performance and  need for changes as well as improvements

D. making sure that customer focus is promoted

E. maintaining integrity  during managing  changes for the system.

6.2.2 c requires  determination of  who will achieve objectives.

6.3 c says that while planning changes,   management  should ensure availability of  resources( human as well as others) and (6.3d )consider  changes in responsibility authority to make changes fruitful.

Requirement of competence

7.2a. requires that the competence requirement of persons affecting quality performance of the organization must be determined

7.2b. requires that management make sure (by collecting information) that  people are competent ( through experience, training as well as  education)

How to maintain your ISO certification after certification

Implementing ISO systems is an easy task with a help of an ISO consultant and once the certification is passed successfully, it might appear that the biggest part of the job is done. But, don’t rest on your laurels for long because the real job with your Business Management System is about to start. Once you start maintaining the Business Management System, you will see that passing the certification is not a problem or stressful if all activities required by the standard are performed.

Very often, companies are not sure what needs to be done prior to the surveillance audit, and therefore don’t gather the necessary information or perform the required activities. This usually results in calling the consultant to make a fix and help them formally pass the certification audit. This is only a quick fix and doesn’t really bring the company any value except having the certificate for formally complying with the standard. But, after having the certificate for several years and harvesting no real benefits for the company, people start wondering how to put their  Business Management system to work.

Go from Plan to Do phase with help from an ISO consultant

Developing procedures is easier than implementing them. Ensuring that the procedures are followed takes more time than writing them. Once the procedures are written, it will take some time to train employees to follow them. Of course, the majority of the activities were already performed even without the standard, but those new ones need time to be adopted by the employees. That is why it is important to raise awareness of the process owners first in order to ensure that they will enforce the procedures among the employees.

This will definitely require filling in some additional records and keeping track of activities, but in the end, you will have more data to analyze during the management review and this will help you make decisions based on facts rather than assumptions.

Training provided by ISO consultants

As mentioned above, the new activities will definitely require additional training of employees. Specialist ISO consultants like Anitech are able provide training to your staff on your system instead wasting time on a generic system. The good thing is that the standard provides the organization with the framework on how to identify the needs and plan the training along with the requirements to measure training effectiveness. The systematic approach to competence will help the organization not only to achieve it regarding the standard requirements, but also for other processes as well. Also, measuring training effectiveness will provide you with information on how people are really competent instead of just collecting certificates.

Control of outsourcing partners and suppliers

This may seem like reinventing the wheel, but there are not many companies that have a structured approach to this topic. In most cases they rely on gut feeling and price, but these aren’t the only criteria for deciding which supplier to hire or which  supplier use again. Sometimes it is good to stop for a second and define what you really expect from your supplier, and if it is already transformed into the procedure, you only need to evaluate the suppliers at planned intervals. Some of them left a good impression a few years ago, but are they still up to the task?

Monitoring and measuring

Monitoring and measuring should provide you with information on the status of a system, process, or activities within your Business Management System. If you set up the monitoring and measuring process correctly, it will provide you with information about the performance of your processes. If not, this is something that needs to be considered during the next management review.

Customer satisfaction

Being one of the most important principles behind ISO based management system, customer focus is demonstrated through monitoring and measuring customer satisfaction. The company must define how and how often it will conduct surveys to determine customer perception of your service / product Having relevant information on how the customers perceive the organization is a valuable input for further development of the products and services and the company itself.

Check and Act phases

Gathering relevant information about the system through monitoring and measuring and following the process procedures will enable top management to exercise the last principle of ISO based management system, and that is evidence-based decision making. A detailed and thorough audit conducted by specialist ISO consultants will provide you with additional information not only about the level of compliance, but also about the condition of your entire system. Together with other information gathered along the way, the top management will be able to conduct good, value-added management review and make decisions that lead to continual improvement of the system and the company.

External audit without stress

Having all these elements of the system in place means having an effective Business Management System, the one that really adds value to your organisation.Having an simple to use system will assist an organisation to breeze through an ISO certification audit.

Quality Management System:How Total Quality Management Can Be Applied to Maintenance System

Maintenance systems all over the world   aim at high reliability and availability of equipment and other assets. Other objectives of maintenance systems include:

• ·         Reduction in production loss (due to unplanned stoppages)
• ·         Extended productive life of assets
• ·         Higher resale value
• ·         Safety
• ·         Lower cycletime of diagnosing the equipment  failures and repairing and restoring equipment to health
•       Avoiding surprises
• ·         Higher productivity  and efficiency of equipment
• ·         Reduced setup delay and  losses  due to lowspeed operation of machines
• ·         Lower overall operational expenses, inclusive of cost of maintenance.
• ·         Reducing the loss due to catastrophic failure of equipment

Relevance of TQM in maintenance

Total quality management (TQM) has been applied successfully for maintenance systems, in order to improve its effectiveness. The concept of TQM has an interesting history.

At the end of the Second World War, in order to minimize delivery of defectives to customers, producers began to emphasize stringent norms for finished goods inspection. However this caused a rise in rejection rate and cost of goods  increased.

In order to reduce the production of defectives, producers began to improve quality at the manufacturing stage. The success was limited, because experience told them that many defects were caused not due to manufacturing stage, but due to defective design itself.Now the companies realized the need to improve quality company wide, improve everything that company did.

 Soon it was realized that defects were contributed by parts bought from vendors. In order to involve everybody within in the organization as well as with  the vendors the new concept was named total quality management. These concepts were initially introduced in Japan.

Quality management system

In order to ensure consistent quality output, through TQM, throughout the organization, International standards organization introduced three new standards, viz. ISO 9001, ISO 9002, and ISO 9003 forthe  implementation and certification of quality management systems. These standards were later combined into a single standard: ISO 9001 certification.Process approach was adopted for improvement of quality in every business activity. ISO 9001 Consultants continue to play an important role in the application of TQM, and successful implementation of ISO 9001.

 Two distinct approaches of TQM concept implementation emerged:

·         Continuous improvement approach  through quality circles (small group activity) at grass root level, and

·         Cross functional quality improvement teams (of experts), who try to improve quality through breakthrough solutions, which result in quantum jump in overall performance.

PDCA cycle:

TQM methodology involves four sequential stages, known as PDCA cycle:

In the planning stage, the team of people, identifies the problem to be solved and collectsfactsand data, and use the TQM tools such as 

·        

•       Brain storming
• ·         Fish bone  or Ishikawa diagram (Cause-effect relationship diagram)
• ·         Control charts
• ·         Check sheets
• ·         Pareto analysis
• ·         Histogram
• ·         Scatter chart
• ·         Process flowchart and
• ·         Stratification

Based on the root cause analysis done by using fishbone diagram, solutions are planned in this stage. Best solutions are determined and implemented in the Do stage.

During the Check stage, the team determines the measurements to decide the effectiveness of the solution implemented,and confirm the effectiveness.

In the Actstage team prepares the document of changes and the results, communicates to others in the organization so that solution can be adopted on companywide basis. Necessary training is given.  Based on the experience gained, next cycle of PDCA is initiated to ensure continuous improvement on a sustainable basis.

Aviation sector, among others, has reported successful implementation of TQM for improvements in maintenance.Benefits reportedinclude enhanced safety, reduced cycle time of fault diagnosis and repair activities as well as reduced down time.Latest quality improvement techniques  now being adopted include business process re-engineering(BPR), adoption of best practices(BP) and benchmarking(BM) as well as six sigma approach to fine tuning the processes.