Quality is the one attribute any manufacturer cannot hide – it screams who they are louder than any marketing campaign or PR strategy. Nothing says more about a manufacturer than how they prioritize quality management in manufacturing and information, intelligence, systems and processes necessary to excel in this critical area. In service industries, the higher the quality and more consistent a customers’ experience the higher the profitability of a business (Kimes, 2001). A study by Accenture and the National Small Business United Group (NSBU) showed that mid-tier manufacturers who attained the highest level of quality also were more profitable than their peer group companies (Quality, 1993).

Manufacturers who choose to embed quality deep into their enterprises, doing the hard work of making it a core part of their DNA over time see the following benefits:

Reduced manufacturing costs attributable to less material waste;
Greater efficiency of tools and manufacturing equipment;
Greater optimization of skilled workers’ time and talents;
Improved supplier quality;
Improved traceability across the entire production process;
Continual reductions in non-compliance.
Orchestrating all of these measurable gains together to create a unified enterprise quality strategy makes any manufacturer significantly more agile, enabling the ability to reconfigure operations, processes and business relationships in real-time (Alexander, 2002).

Strategies For Improving Quality Management

This is the first post in a series that explains why manufacturers need to adopt a more enterprise-wide approach to quality, not allowing these systems to be siloed, delivering limited effectiveness as a result. The series will focus on how manufacturers can use the Six Sigma DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control) methodologies to get the most value from their quality management efforts. Three of the five elements of DMAIC are covered in this first post.

Complex manufacturers need to get beyond the myopic mindset that isolated, non-integrated quality management systems are good enough. That mindset invites mediocre performance when what’s needed is a strong focus on enterprise-wide results. Of the many strategies manufacturers are using for improving quality management performance, the following five are delivering solid, long-term results:

1. Creating and reinforcing a strategic framework of quality that permeates every aspect of a manufacturer’s value chain is essential.

2. Supplier quality management objectives need to be defined before procurement and strategic sourcing is undertaken and integrated into inbound inspection, traceability and audits.

3. Quality Control and compliance departments need to get beyond just reacting to quality management problems and take a much more proactive, strategic approach instead.

4. Measurements of quality performance are the baseline that supplier management, production, fulfillment and services measure themselves by.

5. Quality process control programs need to be based on metrics and KPIs that serve as guard rails to keep quality management on track to meeting and exceeding customer requirements first.

Strategies for Improving Quality Management in Manufacturing – Part I