Key Factors and Principles of Total Quality Management
Item 2
Influence Factors of Quality in the Company
Total Quality includes internal and external factors:
- Human Factor: The involvement of all employees in continuous improvement (innovation, process improvement, etc.). The human value of work is very important.
- Technological Factors: Advances in technology will reduce costs, improve flexibility in ordering *à la carte* (JIT-Just in Time), and offer better quality at better prices.
- Commercial Factor: Globalization imposes a lot of competition between firms. You can buy and sell anywhere in the world, and customers are increasingly strict in selecting the best product quality/price ratio.
- Environmental Factor: Businesses should act in a way that respects the environment, not only to enforce environmental laws but also to be assessed positively by society.
Fundamentals of Quality in the Company
Quality Systems in the company are based on six principles:
- Customer Orientation: It is the customer who decides whether a product has quality. A good quality system will seek strategies to meet customer quality expectations through good customer service, creating systems for measuring customer satisfaction through regular surveys without waiting for claims or complaints, and innovating with new products and services to retain the client. This is customer care (loyalty and customer retention).
- Organizational Commitment: People who are excited, integrated, and willing to give their best are a real competitive advantage. The implementation of a Quality System requires commitment and participation from the entire organization at all levels.
- Prevention: Quality is achieved by preventing errors before they occur. To analyze the causes leading to errors, one should examine the key factors involved in both production and personnel.
- Measurement, Calibration, and Traceability: Quality control techniques use statistics to measure and compare the results with the proposed objectives and act to reduce or eliminate deviations. It is important to be able to trace the product through the supply chain at all stages of production, processing, and distribution. Computer systems, electronic tags, bar codes, etc., are used. This way, you can detect and correct errors at any stage.
- Quality Assurance: Planned actions to give confidence that a product or service meets quality requirements. Evaluate how and why things are done with periodic audits.
- Continuous Improvement and Innovation: Continuous improvement is the creation of an organized system to achieve ongoing changes in all activities of the company to increase total quality. Led by management, continuous small improvements are achieved with the participation of the entire team. Innovation is a radical improvement implemented by management and consists of large investments in new machines and technologies.
