Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2021. Read them in this 13th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
Why 2021 is the year Quality language will change
By Michael Mallen, a Quality Management Expert at QAD
I hope that 2021 will be the year that sees the return of the quality team to the boardroom of companies. By this I mean that executive leadership will come to a full understanding regarding how quality can differentiate their business as a whole. There has been a lot more focus in the past year or so on “business” improvement rather than “Quality” improvement.
The broader understanding of quality management as a business improvement tool has been lost over the years as quality managers focused on meeting more and more stringent quality standards and customer-specific requirements and also adopting the buzz words of quality. For the quality management professional, “TQM,” “PpK’, “CpK,” “PFMEA” etc. have replaced the fundamental language of business – “$$$”. This change in terminology resulted in Quality professionals stranding themselves on a different island from the rest of the business tribe. C-suite folks are smart. That’s how they got to the C-suite. But if they don’t understand the language of a quality proposal, how many C-suite people are going to sit there and go, “Oh yeah, right. Just get on with it. Here, have a boatload of money and just make it work for me.”?
Recently, however, I see this changing. The quality professionals I speak with are changing their language. Instead of saying “I’m going to improve your PpK and CpK and I’m going to use an F-test and a T-test and ANOVA to make it happen,” they are saying “if you give me this amount of money, I’m going to increase your capacity by x percent. I’m going to reduce your cost of poor quality by x number of dollars and I’m going to put this amount of margin back into your business.” This is the language the C suite understands and is willing to invest in. As a ramification of this, I believe we are going to see a continued movement toward business leaders who view quality as integral to the success of their business, as opposed to just an investment in making sure they don’t have a quality issue that gets them sued or ends up in a recall.
Another area where I hope to see change concerns the ways in which resources can be utilized to the best benefit of both the organization and the resource (namely people). As I work with different organizations in a variety of industrial sectors, I hear the same thing. “We are resource-constrained.” We hear daily complaints including work/life balance. “I do not have the time,” and “add it to my list and I will get to it when I can.” Constant messages that people are trying to do too much with too little. We have to step back and ask ourselves, are we focusing on the essential issues that make the business better? I was recently working with a client that had both a VP of Quality and a VP of Operational Excellence. The VP of Quality was focused on the dollars impacting the company – a significant step in the right direction. But when it came to the VP of Operational Excellence I found a disconnect. The operational improvement guy was focused on departmental-level initiatives (between two and four per department) that diluted the focus of the improvements and overburdened the resources while having little impact on the overall performance of the company.
I predict that as we see organizations reaping the benefits of integrating quality tools into the business processes, implementing EQMS systems, and using the language of business where quality is concerned, we will see quality and operational excellence come together as a unified force that will focus the attention of the organization (namely the C-suite) on the critical few items that will drive overall business performance and customer satisfaction.
Finally, for 2021 – we will see a continued focus on risk mitigation and how quality can play a prominent role in this area. Executives are increasingly aware of the impact risk can have both on the company and on themselves as individuals. Who would have suspected that senior business professionals would be arrested for an emissions violation? The C-suite is starting to realize that these situations are impacted by their quality management efforts. They are thinking ‘this stuff is potentially impacting me. I could be put in jail. I could get fined.’ Add to that the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on commerce and the general lack of preparedness for larger, global socioeconomic risks and we start to see a change in focus that properly considers risk.
This change of focus is resulting in an increased focus on risk management in all its facets, from Product and Process risk (addressed with tools such as Failure Mode Effects Analysis for both Design [Product] and Process) to overall Business Risk Management and contingency planning for items such as supply chain risk management. Executive management is starting to look to the quality experts to deliver these initiatives. This is where a high functioning, vertically integrated EQMS system can help. Built-in risk management at key points in the system helps to ensure that the company mitigates risk to the best of its ability.
In addition to this area of risk mitigation is the initiative in many industries to combine several essential regulatory and business standards into one unified system. For example, we have seen the movement to align quality standards with other standards such as Environmental, Occupational Safety and Health standards. The International Standard Organization (ISO) has already moved forward to align these in terms of structure. I think we will see a greater movement to embed these into EQMS systems and to ensure that these regulations and standards are controlled and the performance to the standards improved in alignment with Overall Operational Effectiveness (OOE).
Quality teams will start to contribute a high level of leadership to the operational management of the company based on the needs of the organization to improve performance in terms of customer satisfaction, EBITDA and Margin and mitigation of risk. These business-driven requirements will be enabled by digitizing the quality systems making them integral to the business functions who need them. The highest performing operations will accomplish this by utilizing a fully vertically integrated electronic Enterprise Quality Management System to drive the change to a Business Quality Culture.
##
About the Author
Michael Mallen is a Quality Management Expert at QAD where he brings 30 years of experience in manufacturing, engineering and the development and management of quality systems. In his current role, Mallen consults with organizations in several industry verticals including Automotive, Life Science and Food and Beverage to improve the effectiveness of their business processes and maximize the ROI from QAD software. Before joining QAD, Mallen was vice president of quality at Suminoe Textile America. Prior to that, he served in a variety of quality and technical management positions at companies including Berger Safety Textiles, Hexcel Schwebel – Tech Fab, Reeves International and Autoliv’ Airbags International division. Mallen has a B.Sc. (Honors) degree in Textile Design and Technology from Huddersfield University. His accreditations include Lean Six Sigma Master Blackbelt, ASQ Certified Quality Manager, Lead Auditor / Internal Auditor.
