Z Is For ZERO Defects

As always, I want to offer my sincere apology to Sue Grafton for using (stealing??) her approach for the titles of her many outstanding mystery novels for this series of articles that I hope makes YOU a happier and more effective leader working with a truly empowered team that really enjoys what they do! Oh, and if you have not read any of Ms. Grafton’s novels I highly recommend that you give her a try.

What is Quality?

The simplest definition that I can offer for quality is a product or service that has ZERO defects!!

“If you don’t produce a product or deliver a service WITH a defect you WON’T have to fix it or apologize for it!!”

     - Jonesy

Quality has been the most misused and misunderstood “buzz” word in the working world since at least the early 50’s (Productivity would be in second place, just in case you might be wondering). But what is quality really, and how do you improve it? Quality must be a made a priority in all that you do!! You need to define quality, develop an improvement system that matches the goals and talents of your Teamers and determine how to measure, and therefore prove your improvement in quality.

Quality has been the hottest and most misunderstood topic for all of my work life. This was especially true when Japan set a new world standard for quality by practicing techniques taught them in the 1950s, but largely ignored here in America. Before you can improve quality you must have a definition for quality for you and your Teamers.

“Quality is not an act, it is a habit.”

- Aristotle

Another definition I can offer for quality is the “conformance to requirements or expectations.” But that simplicity often doesn’t address the typical real world, that is, the Organization’s questions, problems and concerns with quality. So let me try again, quality is having the products or services of your Teamers match or exceed the expectations of your client or customer. Much has been written about quality and improvement by famous writers including Peter Drucker, Tom Peters and Stephen Covey and many, many others but I think that the two writers and thinkers that influenced me the most were Philip B. Crosby and W. Edwards Deming.

One of the best books that I can recommend to you is Quality Is Free by Philip B. Crosby. It was written in 1979 and I read it in the early 80s as part of a quality improvement program that was started in my Organization’s engineering team (my thanks to Senior Tom). This book introduced the principle of “doing it right the first time” (DIRFT). It dispels the myths that quality costs more or takes longer to achieve. Crosby’s belief was that an organization that started a quality program would have savings that would more than pay for the costs of the quality program. He offered these four major principles for any quality program:

• The definition of quality is conformance to requirements. Do your projects meet the requirements or expectations of your client or customer?

• The system of quality is prevention.

• ·The performance standard is ZERO defects.

• The measurement of quality is the price of nonconformance.

But my interest in quality didn’t start with Crosby. I started being interested in quality in the late seventies. I had read an article by W. Edwards Deming who had saved Japan from producing poor quality products and services. Perhaps you aren’t old enough to remember when “things” from Japan were terrible and often the laughing stock of the world. What turned me on to Deming was that he had been teaching quality here in America but was largely ignored. Times were good then! But Japan found him in the early 50s and asked him to help them in their pursuit to improve quality. A number of manufacturers in Japan used his teachings and achieved greatly improved levels of quality and productivity. The improved quality and lower cost created a worldwide demand for products from Japan.

But as I said, his teachings were largely ignored here in America! It wasn’t until 1981 when Ford Motor Company with sales falling recruited the services of Deming to jump-start a quality movement.

I feel that Deming’s teachings were, to say the least, way ahead of his time. His basic philosophy was that “the key (to quality) was to practice continual improvement and think of manufacturing as a system, not bits and pieces.”

The bottom line is that W. Edward Deming was the founder of the “total quality management movement.” He and Philip Crosby will provide you with all that you need to know on quality. I highly recommend ALL of their publications.

Lastly, perhaps you and your Teamers can identify quality as what it is not, rather than what it is. I remember one of the first quality improvement launch meetings that I had with my Teamers. The team had a tradition of each member bringing in doughnuts and pastries for sharing with everyone when you had a birthday. I never understood why it was you who brought doughnuts in on your birthday, but anyway everyone loved a good doughnut or pastry and we often started meetings with doughnuts and pastries on me.

But this meeting I arrived with the typical “big white box from the bakery.” I sat the box on the meeting room table and opened it up to share with the team five packages of cheap store bought mini doughnuts! I pushed a package toward each group of my Teamers and said “Please help yourself and enjoy!” Their reactions and faces were priceless. This wasn’t the quality that they were used to or expected.

And we all had a “got it” moment that is “what quality isn’t.” Sometimes it is easier to start quality improvement by identifying what is not quality; a process step that often fails, a project hand off between Teamers that has failed or simply training that’s needed. Consider working on the obvious things that aren’t quality to get you started on defining what quality is for you and your Teamers.

Oh, I did excuse myself from the meeting above to get another big white box from the bakery filled with the expected goodies and everyone’s satisfaction level went up immediately! Matching expectations will always do that!

“Quality means doing it right when no one is looking.”

- Henry Ford

I wish you empowerment, every happiness, success and peace!! Jonesy