So simple to say, so difficult to obtain. All agree that our products and services must have the quality. That without the quality we can not sell, customers refuse our products and this will lead to the destruction of value for the shareholder.
And so easy to talk about it, the Top Manager talks about it so easily that many times it is difficult to see where we talk about something real or something fictitious. We see two different approaches to this infamous quality:
The first is a factory, it even in a country that we all agree as cuna quality. Indeed, we conversely, take my conversation with a Top Manager and Head of DHR after my first three weeks of incorporation to another company coming to the one on which I began the speech. In front of their two I asked what had surprised me more than these three weeks. The I said so many laps without "spoken quality, we have a big problem, but we are centrando all our efforts in improving the quality ... but I do not see anything." "How?" I will stop. "You see, I made the rounds at the factory and anywhere I saw the signs with the quality level achieved el'obbiettivo to achieve, namely with the number of defects in each section, the only thing I saw immediately at and the number of product accumulated done until then!, so we can not improve quality. " "But no!" They said in unison. "Sure there are the graphics quality in the sessions, in a panel!" Li said, "no, not just in a hidden panel in an A4 sheet that go to tell how much is updated, everyone must really like working, what to do if you do not reach the goal. " The debate ends, with the usual thought, this young man is good, but will grow, how can it afford to jeopardize our project, one of the industry leader!
I passed six years, and there is always the usual billboard, there are no signs to date with the second level and aulita goal. But it's a big difference from then, now the pace of units produced changes more slowly and even some model does not move more!
Do not just talk, not enough to implement methods Japanese or German or simply methods. The most important and those who are responsible for the quality, and here I speak of productive force, the workers, not white-collar controlling, that step within the responsibility to workers, unions that normally pull out only by a protectionist policy. It is the workers should be aware that they are the ones who determine the quality, and it is they who determine the quality, they must know how performance second to second.
Have drawn the best training possible, the best methods, better tools, if they do not know if what at that time was right or not, we can not improve quality.
My first experience at a factory visit to Germany, it was precisely these LED lights of billboards placed in all sections and for which flowed continuously the level of defects at the time el'obbiettivo. Almost paranoid, but in every section, in all corners, visible to all. So as you can, in retrospect one can hardly do anything. Without seeing one is carrying and how others are implementing and improving impossible. The only thing we can do and survive, blame others instead of causing and continue to do shoddy products because after there will be someone else to whom to blame, there are many tiles, it is easy to load the blame on a other.
Know to act, this is a first step towards improving quality. I want to leave aside the goal of better training, better tools, processes, promote the participation of workers in the best processes and so on. They are absolute obbiettà to do, but I want to focus more on the strategic quality.
The second and be strong enough to stop the production process until the products do not come out with the required levels. That is, work to ensure the future of a product and not the result immediately. This is even more difficult to achieve the first, which in the end there are costs, it takes only a small investment and the courage to wade on the eyes. In the latter case it takes its not just look in the eye, but also take the losses or earnings expected at that time to preserve the future return on investment.
In a normal situation, let me say that I intend to normal when a company to a Top Management consolidated without much turnover and a strong reference shareholder who controls near or far from the Top Management, said, in a normal situation the decision should be simple provoking Stop the launch of the product, take the loss and send home the director of production if it is at that stage that the quality materializes as a problem. In abnormal situations, does not stop anything, it launches the product, the first responses of journalists and distributors are negative, do not do anything, the response of the public are negative, it sells well because there was a phenomenon waiting, but Once past this, sales fall and the product has a life cycle in free fall.
The answer to these abnormal Top Managers give you and that you can not, that the machine is already launched and that the losses include a launch are too large and that after we put quality problems, that a life cycle and so long , That time is all that one wants. Frankly, even I was of that opinion. But I have lived both experiences and I like the first.
Always with the same examples. In the first case we need the most important product for us. The old was too old, demand for the new was very strong because we were still with a certain competitive advantage, investment for the launch were already so massive compromises and agreements with the demand. Signal the arrival of all detentions. The launch will postpone, I remember the pressure that lees demonstrating the high cost of not running, not only for loss of unity, but also investment not recoverable. We wanted to run it at any price, but despite all the markets did the same pressure, the order of the Headquarters was clear, we postpone that until the product reaches the desired levels. Quel'anno soffrimo in lost sales, investments in smoke, but the lesson was clear: the image of that product and the brand grows in coming years allowing us to consolidate and increase our revenues. The level of quality perceived by customers increased. In step the director of the factory was dismissed. The negative signal datt beginning to postpone a launch because the quality was not desired, becomes a positive signal for the entire chain: the management saw that as not reaching those goals and sanctioned, distributors who see the commitment of the public perceives that better products and regains finally the workers who see that they are responsible for the destiny of evil because if they work, do not you deploy the production, unless you deploy does not sell, if you do not sells not cash ...
The results in the company will let you imagine, not ever improves enough when the product is already in distribution, and quality continues to be low, because these values, quality and value, are not transmitted to all participants in production cycle.
Let me call the syndrome of quality zero. Why? In an international meeting to give more value to efforts that the company was doing to improve began with an introduction by the director of quality. What was my surprise when a Top Manager next to me lees note: "You saw the title of the slide? Quality zero "In fact, he spoke of zero defects, but the title was clear to them as zero! Not zero defects!.
