Quality Management Efforts Help Optimize Operations

Remembering the year past and ringing in the new year may seem a momentous occasion. But that doesn’t necessarily signal a new beginning.

However, it does serve as a reminder to stop and think about things and to consider our successes and shortcomings. Doing that provides us the opportunity to plan what to do next so we can have better results going forward.

Those plans may involve snacking less, exercising more, being kinder and gentler, and/or becoming more strategic in operating our businesses.

If you’re trying to snack less, you may want to stop buying junk food so it’s not around during you’re weaker moments. If you want to exercise more, you may want to identify and make plans with a couple exercise buddies each week. And if you want to be kinder and gentler, you may want to journal about what you’re grateful for and hang some helpful reminders around you home and office reminding you not to sweat the small stuff.

However, if your aim is to optimize operations so you can deliver better customer service and meet business goals, you probably want to establish or revisit your quality management program.

“To achieve the right balance, organizations must learn to think about quality systematically,” notes McKinsey & Co. “At the very earliest stage of quality awareness, organizations start to hear the voice of the customer more clearly while stabilizing their operating systems and promoting greater transparency about quality problems. As these practices take hold, the next stage of maturity centers on strengthening cross-functional accountability and collaboration for quality—such as with new performance standards so that quality standards inform the design of products and the management of supply contracts.

“At the third stage, quality informs much of the organization’s decision making, embedding itself so deeply that it becomes a part of the culture and essential to the company’s value proposition,” the firm says. “Finally, among a small group of the very highest performers, quality becomes the basis for their reputation. These exceptional organizations expand their perspective on quality to address customer problems in ways that push their businesses into new areas, building on behavioral research and process analytics to develop deeper solutions and customer relationships.”

Edited by Maurice Nagle