Accelerating the Adoption of Quality

As we celebrate World Quality Month this November, ASQ CEO Paul Borawski asks the Quality community what can we do to accelerate the rate of adoption of quality? A big part of the solution, I believe, is to promote the broader role of "quality" in everyday life. This month the leaders of the MN Section of ASQ organized several community service projects partnering with the Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity to "build a House of Quality". We strategically chose two Saturdays in November with Habitat for Humanity to both recognize World Quality Month and to demonstrate the role of quality in design (e.g. environmentally friendly homes) while building stronger social communities. I am extremely proud of our MNASQ members who quickly filled both November dates to participate on indoor and outdoor new home construction projects. We also had a few members who could not physically participate, and chose instead to contribute via charitable donation towards community playground equipment. Habitat for Humanity was so pleased by the quality of our work and contributions that they asked us to sponsor a Saturday in December. Our members have asked the Section leaders to also consider sponsoring a community service project this spring.

Sponsoring community service projects is just one tactic the MNASQ section is using to define and promote quality as "Total Customer Experience" (TCE).  Total Customer Experience is defined as the overall customer impression based on perceptions and experiences of a company's products, services, people, partners and solutions at every touchpoint. Regardless of whether one subscribes to the notion that the U.S. is shifting from a manufacturing economy to a service economy, fewer people involved in continuous improvement today align themselves with traditional 'Quality'. Hence, one explanation of the decline in ASQ membership since its peak in the late 1980's (Total Quality movement). Today's continuous improvement practitioners are organized around such labels and efforts as process improvement, operational excellence, customer satisfaction, patient safety, etc. Early adoption of quality principles in manufacturing made intuitive sense -  it is much easier to view work as a process in the manufacturing environment where supplier-customer interactions are obvious, requirements are generally known, defects are understood, and data are frequent and numerous. Contrast the manufacturing environment to the transactional world where process thinking is not intuitive, the customer is not always identified, the "product" may not be well understood, defects may not be defined, and data are not systematically collected.

Following the "Diffusion of Innovation" model, (Everett Rogers, 1962), service and transactional quality may be regarded as laggards in the quality improvement journey yet hold great potential to delivering significant gains in performance excellence and business success.

In today's difficult economy with increasingly global competition and sophisticated customers, excellent product quality is a given. Dr. Joseph Juran defined quality along three key attributes: free from defects, features, and reliability.  Following that definition, competitive advantage today is achieved through superior, consistent, reliable product and service performance that delivers unmatched Total Customer Experience... every transaction, every touchpoint, every time.

To help activate the adoption of quality in transactional processes it helps to visualize the cross-functional nature of most business processes. Whereas most functions are defined as silos, most processes are cross-functional. Keys to transactional process improvement are recognize where the  internal supplier-customer hand-offs occur and fully understand the internal customer requirements. A critical role of Quality in transactional processes is to manage the organizational white spaces within each cross-functional process.  Many organizations today are applying lean tools and concepts to help them drive speed and improve efficiency through the elimination of waste and non value-added activity.

Dr. Deming is quoted to having said, "Change is not necessary. Survival is optional". Lean, Six Sigma, PDCA, CAPA, etc. are all valuable methods of problem solving and continuous improvement to help assure competitiveness of the enterprise. But I define Quality much broader than continuous improvement alone.
Quality is the intentional alignment of mission, vision, values, leadership, planning, customer focus, work systems, workforce and continual improvement for organizational success. I prescribe to the "hamburger" model of the Baldrige Criteria where continuous improvement is just one crucial ingredient to performance excellence of the organization.



Quality is achieved by flawless execution at the speed of the customer. So how do we measure flawless execution? The Cost of Poor Quality (COPQ) metric and a measure of customer satisfaction (or even better - customer loyalty) are two key indicators.

COPQ Iceberg illustration from Free-Six-Sigma.com

Traditional measures of COPQ track the measures that are relatively easy to observe, such as waste, scrap, rework, inspection costs, disposal costs, warranty and complaints costs, etc. Though these measures are relatively easy to obtain (i.e. "Visible" costs), more often the greater opportunity for operational excellence and customer experience is in the "hidden costs" of excess inventory, numerous engineering change orders, lost sales, costs to expedite shipments, limited product availability caused by the lack of speed, flow and synchronization of one's key value streams, etc.

Illustration from SixSigmaTraining.org

As quality costs are reduced, profits are increased.  As value streams are optimized to increase velocity and flow, customer satisfaction is increased due to improved "product" quality and availability.

So, back to Paul Borawski's question of how can the quality professional accelerate the adoption of quality... Quality must be defined much more broadly than product or service quality. Competitive advantage today is achieved by a relentless focus on delivering Total Customer Experience including exceptional product/service/transactional quality, consistently good customer service, a warm, inviting customer experience, a commitment to environmental stewardship and social responsibility. Politics aside, I like Chick-fil-A and Caribou Coffee as two role model organizations in this regard.

Increasing the Value of Quality

During my 31 years in Quality engineering and management I have come to understand, appreciate, advocate and promote the greater role of the quality professional in organizations large and small. Though the average person on the street still thinks of quality as QC and inspection activities (aka "little q"), the demand for "Big Q" strategic, enterprise-wide quality has never been stronger, nor the urgency and importance greater. Today's continuing difficult global economic condition is causing uncertainty in the marketplace. Just this evening the CBS television news documentary 60 Minutes asked the question, "Are we headed for a recession or economic recovery?" Many businesses are scaling back their growth plans and even shrinking their work force in order to limit their exposure and reduce their risk in these uncertain times; they are exhibiting a bunker mentality, hoarding their cash instead of investing in capital expansion, commercializing new products and hiring new talent.

Every year since 1999, The Conference Board has asked hundreds of CEOs from the world’s leading organizations to identify their most critical challenges. The top five challenges from the 2012 CEO Challenge are Innovation, Human Capital, Global Political/Economic Risk, Government Regulation, and Global Expansion.

ASQ has conducted six Future of Quality Studies – in 1996, 1999, 2002, 2005, 2008 and 2011. The studies comprise three major components.

1. Identify the key forces that are most likely to shape the future of quality.
2. Develop alternative scenarios describing how these forces might unfold.
3. Determine implications for organizations, the quality field, and for quality professionals.

The 2011 ASQ report, titled "Emergence" discusses the 8 key forces affecting the Future of Quality as summarized from the input of 140 participants in 33 countries: Global Responsibility, Consumer Awareness, Globalization, Increasing rate of Change, Workforce of the Future, Aging Population, 21st Century Quality, and Innovation.

The similarities and overlap between these two studies validate the alignment and importance of Quality's increasing role to deliver organizational performance excellence and business results. I believe the Baldrige Criteria serves as an excellent framework to position Quality responsibilities throughout any organization. The Baldrige Criteria categories address leadership, strategic planning, customer focus, workforce engagement, operations management, continuous improvement and business results. 21st Century Quality goes beyond traditional product and service quality. It is about total customer experience: quality as defined by the customer in every transaction, every encounter - and everything in between.  21st Century Quality starts and ends with the customer. Quality has the opportunity - the obligation - to advocate for the customer (internal and external) throughout the Value Stream. Validating the voice of customer (VOC) to assure differentiating performance and competitive advantage is a key opportunity for the Quality improvement professional. The savvy Quality professional also understands the weakness in VOC methods to gather unarticulated customer desires, and is able to experiment with and facilitate new ideation methods.

Continuous improvement of the voice of process (VOP) is the traditional role of Quality, associated with assuring product and service quality. However, simply meeting specifications (requirements) is no longer good enough. Meeting requirements reinforces a goal post mentality where everything in-spec is equally good. Customers and patients today are more discerning; competition and regulations are becoming more numerous, and the pace of change is accelerating. Today's Quality professional recognizes the value of a quality-by-design, "Run to Target" mindset and is able to convey the merits of sustainability and statistical thinking to help organizations achieve operational excellence. Operational Excellence delivers cost-effective solutions through capable and stable, yet responsive and agile work systems and processes. Today's Quality professional is able to teach, coach and manage an effective Quality Management System to assure regulatory and industry compliance and business continuity. Today's Quality professional is also able to recommend, coach and lead the most appropriate continuous improvement methodology given the organization's culture and needs.  Lean, Six Sigma and Quality together support an overall business performance improvement strategy comprised of problem solving and continuous improvement. Lean philosophy abhors waste. Lean is a continuous improvement methodology that seeks to reduce cycle time and increase flow (i.e. speed) to consistently deliver quality product/service on time at the right quantity and value. Six Sigma is a project-by-project problem solving methodology that seeks to reduce defects for reduced variability and cost, and improved customer satisfaction. Quality processes exhibit predictable aim with minimal variation. Consistent quality and flow cannot be achieved without stable, capable processes; however, entropy is constantly at work. "Entropy acts on every process, causing it to move toward deterioration and decay, wear and tear, breakdowns and failures", says Dr. Don Wheeler. Holding the gains and demonstrating a personal commitment to continual improvement is everyone's job. Successful business performance improvement requires the participation of employees at all levels of the organization. Implementing continuous improvement where everyone is involved greatly enhances employee engagement, resulting in increased customer satisfaction and loyalty. Quality's role as change agent and catalyst for change is a critical, growing responsibility in today's fast paced global economy.

The experienced Quality professional, skilled in strategic planning and change management, is also able consult and facilitate in strategy development, deployment and execution. Hoshin kanri/ business process execution methods are a new frontier for today's Quality professional seeking to make an impact at the C-Suite for enterprise improvement.

I believe the strategic, customer-focused Quality function is uniquely qualified to help businesses mired in indecision and paralyzed by fear to achieve sustainable, quality growth. As Quality professionals we should seek every opportunity to teach, coach and consult to enlighten others that delivering total customer experience requires everyone's participation, resulting in increased customer satisfaction, brand loyalty, confidence and growth.