In my bit of industrial experience, I have worked in various companies ranging from medium to large corporations. Their level of performance and quality was proportional to their size (or, better stated, their budget), which determined how much they could invest in quality assurance and control. Larger organizations wouldn’t just direct those efforts toward their products, but also into how they managed employees. Because of this, I noticed a visible level of confidence among their ranks, which varied depending on the company’s investment in quality practices.

I saw a greater emphasis on the Quality Management System within the larger companies, where leaders stressed the importance of maintaining a high level of quality in our daily operations, which directly contributed to the products’ development and production. This resulted in very few or nonexistent failures internally with development and externally with product performance. Smaller companies, on the other hand, tended to focus only on the production side while neglecting employee workflow and culture. This often created a toxic environment where the highest standards of development & product quality they claimed to have were difficult to achieve.

To add, I’ve taken a Total Quality Management (TQM) course that outlined the concept of “organizational excellence” and how management (as high as senior leadership) needs to motivate their employees to guarantee their organization can implement and maintain an effective QMS, let alone QA/QC processes; it “trickles down” to even the most basic roles of an organization.

So I’d like to hear your thoughts: if you were in a leadership role, how would you approach investing in a successful QMS for your organization? Would you focus first on initiating a system, maintaining existing standards, enhancing what’s already in place, or a combo of the three, to ensure patients receive the best product or service? 

Feel free to add other potential initiatives!