Company Quality Policy: Goals, Strategies & Organization
Quality Policy of the Company: Goals and Strategies
Quality Systems
Quality systems vary across companies and undergo continuous adaptation to meet current needs. When implementing a quality system, companies aim to achieve profitability without compromising their objectives. Essentially, every company has two main objectives:
- Customer satisfaction: Providing what customers want.
- Cost minimization: Making products more competitive.
The sequence of actions involves choosing a quality philosophy or system that aligns with the company, setting achievable goals, and designing strategies to achieve those objectives.
Declaration of Intent
When implementing a quality system, a company must make a “declaration of intent” that includes:
- General objectives and principles of the quality plan.
- Methods chosen to achieve the selected quality system.
- Proposed actions for everyone involved in the implementation.
There are numerous philosophies on quality systems, with some of the most prominent experts being Deming, Juran, Crosby, and Feigenbaum.
Benefits of a Quality System
Generally, the benefits a company expects from implementing a quality system include:
- Minimizing nonconforming products.
- Preventing failures.
- Improving staff performance.
- Retaining customers.
Organization of Company Quality
Quality Planning
Quality planning involves anticipating future results through a predefined sequence of premises. Determining the optimal sequence requires considering factors such as:
- Acceptable costs.
- Available resources.
- Products to be manufactured.
- Applicable laws.
There are different planning approaches: centralized planning (solely the responsibility of the Directorate) and decentralized planning (shared responsibility across middle and lower organizational levels).
Phases of Quality Planning
- Departmental decision on the necessity of a quality system.
- Development of an internal report to assess the starting point.
- Setting specific, prioritized goals based on the company’s situation.
- Developing strategies to achieve quality objectives.
- Conducting comprehensive training for employees at all levels.
- Allocating resources, assigning responsibilities, and providing budgets.
- Regular audits to monitor progress and ensure proper development.
If everything progresses as planned, the same approach is maintained. Otherwise, failures must be identified and addressed.
Quality and Productivity
Productivity is the output (goods or items produced) divided by the effort invested in the process. Traditionally, increased production was assumed to imply a decrease in quality. However, Japan has consistently demonstrated that improving quality enhances productivity by reducing nonconformities.
Organization of Departments Regarding Quality
Address (Management)
Company management, whether an individual or a group, is responsible for deciding, planning, organizing, and controlling company activities.
Management often acts as a bridge between employees, customers, and shareholders, whose objectives may differ:
- Workers desire fair wages and the means to perform their work effectively.
- Customers seek well-made products, timely delivery, after-sales guarantees, and affordable prices.
- Shareholders aim for profits.
Garvin’s 8 Dimensions of Quality
- Performance
- Features
- Reliability
- Conformance
- Durability
- Serviceability
- Aesthetics
- Perceived Quality
Understanding the quality level required by each internal customer is crucial. The importance of the quality received by each internal customer is paramount because early detection of anomalies minimizes resolution costs.
Design
Effective design planning is as crucial as the design itself. FMEA (Failure Mode and Effects Analysis) is a method for analyzing and validating design reliability. Design planning generally involves the following steps:
- Understanding customer demands through market research. Design can be viewed as a black box that transforms customer specifications into technical specifications.
- Analyzing the current design situation and proposing key features based on the specifications.
- Executing the design through activities such as planning, defining tools and methods, construction stages, and testing.
Purchasing-Supplier
The purchasing department plays a vital role as it manages a significant input: raw materials. The relationship with suppliers and the quality of their products are critical to the company’s operations.
Production
The production process encompasses all operations involved in manufacturing a product with specific characteristics. All processes must be meticulously documented, including:
- Process flow diagrams outlining the chronological sequence of activities.
- Responsibilities for each task.
- Technological resources allocated to each task.
- Procedures for handling nonconformities.
- Process control and monitoring.
- Maintenance plans.
Among the tools used for production control, control charts, diagrams, correlation analysis, histograms, and Pareto charts are widely employed.
The interrelationship between all company processes is crucial, particularly in the production phase, which depends on factors such as:
- Effective product design.
- Logical layout of machines and tools to minimize product movement.
- Availability of correct raw materials.
- Management of finished product output.
- Equipment maintenance management.
- Human resource organization.
- Environmental performance.
al performance.