Many companies whether small or medium are seeking competitive advantage through quality. This is evidenced by:
· Management incorporate quality values into day-to-day management
· Companies worked together with their suppliers to improve quality of their goods and or services
· Companies trains workers in quality techniques and has systems to ensure high quality products
· Companies seeking to meet customers’ needs and wants and get customer satisfaction ratings equal to or better than those of competitors
· And many more.
One of the pioneers associated with quality is W. Edwards Deming. Deming advocates the following fourteen points to quality which is worth noting:
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Deming’s Fourteen Points to Quality |
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1 Create a consistency of purpose in the organization to innovate, put resources into research and education, and put resources into maintaining equipment and new production aids 2. Learn a new philosophy of quality to improve every system 3. Require statistical evidence of process control and eliminate financial goals and quotas 4. Require statistical evidence of control in purchasing parts; this will mean dealing with fewer suppliers 5. Use statistical methods to isolate the sources of trouble 6. Institute modern on-the-job training 7. Improve supervision to develop inspired leaders 8. Drive out fear and instill learning 9. Break down barriers between departments 10. Eliminate numerical goals and slogan 11. Constantly revamp work metods 12. Institute massive training programs for employee in statistical methods 13. Retrain people in new skill 14. Create a structure that will push, every day, on the above thirteen points. |