I think Quality department cannot be treated as a stand-alone entity in the company ensuring quality at every stage of product development. As the quality department ensures quality in every other department and the whole process of product development, each department should be trained about quality procedures of all other departments also. This helps in highlighting the significance of how quality control in one department is interdependent on maintaining quality in other departments.
In my previous experience in the industry, I can illustrate the above point with an example. In the medical imaging department, every scan received on a particular day has a turn-around time of 24 hours to 3 days to completely process the scan along with radiology results depending on the study protocol. Pre-quality and quality control teams ensure that all the scans are compliant with the imaging protocol for the study. A misstep in the pre-QC or QC stage of processing the scans, can lead to delayed radiology results and therefore missing the turn-around deadline which is again a quality issue. In order for the radiology department to accurately analyses the images, it is important for the imaging QC team to first take the step to ensuring quality.
1. Each quality employee should be assigned to a department or project to ensure that if there are any questions about company protectable or regulations there is someone responsible for answering the questions accurately and is there to ensure that the product is being complete by the stands set but the quality department.
2. Open communication and transparency between all departments- if the QA and other departments communicate on company protocol, updates, and improvements that could be made then all departments would have a chance to voice their opinions that then can be taken into consideration on any new changes or regulations.
3. Train All employees of quality department regulation- All employees should go through a training process that exposes them to all of the quality departments regulations. This would give employees a chance ask questions and be aware of protocols before starting on a major project.
The ways to overcome such shortcoming and making sure procedures are also followed using R&D and Quality team as an example: first, the quality team must have appropriate product-specific technical expertise. They should have experienced in R&D field and contribute to the designing of the product along side the research and development team. Quality management start in product and process design to eliminate the probability of error whenever possible, making the correct process visually obvious, and making any errors immediately visually obvious .
In addition, the quality team should be open to implementing their full spectrum quality tools to help R&D group optimize designs through experimentation, statistical analyses and problem solving. The idea that R&D team see themselves as less responsible for product quality as they assume that the Quality organization exists to maintaining standards in manufactured products and customer satisfaction goals are met. While their team only focus on the design and development of new products will lead to conflicts, and create drawbacks.
Lastly, the two groups need to make sure performance measures for each work tasks are well appreciative and aligned
A good way to improve relations with the Quality department and other departments such as the R&D department, is to spend more time in the planning phase. Here you can create a more detailed outline of what is expected from each department, what each department will do and what risk and problems each department may run into. If you can anticipate the risk and future problems you may run into, then when the time comes and the R&D department does run into a problem it will be anticipated and Quality will have an easier time getting R&D to adjust their procedures. Having good communication between the two departments is also important so that they are working together the whole time rather than one department trying to tell the other department what to do. I agree with Monica I think that all departments should spend more time receiving training from the Quality department so that you can minimize the future issues from a department making a mistake. If Quality leads the training then if a mistake is made it can be traced back to Quality not instructing the other departments correctly and can put equal pressure on all departments to make sure that all regulations are known and followed. Quality needs to be there every step of the way so that if a change needs to be made it does not have to be a major change that sets back the whole project.
There isn't much that can be done to overcome the bad relation, in my opinion. You could involve the Quality Department as early as you would like in the Project Life, but that wouldn't change much (if anything). The people in the other departments may not agree with the regulations set forth which quality has no control of. There is bound to be some resistance, but quality just has to stand its ground and take the hits. I guess the only effective way would be to get to know the people in the other departments on a personal level. Allow them to see you as a person and not a department so that when certain things have to be done, they look at it as you are being forced to have this done vs you are being a jerk and making them do things a certain way.
I agree with manolo on many points, but I believe there is more to add. Personal relations are important but I believe that there could be more interdepartmental cooperation project wise. Maybe monthly meetings between the different departments. I haven't worked in industry, but I assume that this isn't done because of the time needed. Maybe having a few people from quality on each project who coordinate with the other staff from the start would be beneficial, but I can't say for sure without knowing exactly what the dynamic is like in the average workplace. At the very least a seminar on the costs of not doing quality control that requires attendance would be useful. People tend to forget the long term when they encounter immediate problems.
I think one of the way to have better relationship within the departments is to improve communication and ways of communication. Departments should realize that they are working for the same company towards a common goal. Department managers should know that helpfulness goes both ways. Also managers should take the lead and reinforce organization values from the top to down. Departments should be responsive, helpful, and collaborative with others departments and team members.
As mentioned in the lecture, the ways we can do for effectively monitoring product quality and collaboration between different departments is to simply make strict principles and rules to comply with. In a big company, there are a lot of departments running inside, and it's nearly impossible to make everyone listen to a manager from one department to tell them what to do, why their job is not perfect and what they need to do instead for just ensuring the quality control. It will be deemed as offenses sometimes, and will cause more people unwilling to collaborate properly. However, under a series of strict but lawfully-allowed company regulation rules, for example, PDCA cycle, everybody should only be allowed to do exactly what they need to do in that phase, to run the project smoothly and no more arguments going.
I think every department needs to understand the importance of their individual roles. R&D shouldn't blindly rely on the quality department to make sure the products they developed are safe. Quality control department seems to be the one to get all the blame if something goes wrong however, R&D is just as responsible for anything that can go wrong. Quality control and R&D should go hand in hand as both departments are working towards the same goal of providing good service to customers to keep company alive. They should have weekly meetings regarding how product development process is going and whether the procedures set by quality department are being followed. If not, at least they can do something about it early.
I agree with everyone opinion, but communication is an important key for the relationship between the departments because if one of the departments finds a problem, they need to alert the rest of the departments. A company does not run with one department, it runs with multiple departments because the all have a purpose which intertwines. Communication between the departments will help reduce mistakes because they will be prepared. I agree with hzy2 opinion regarding the departments understanding each other roles because it helps them work better together, understanding what they do can create a bridge between them.
Totally agree with other replies, having a bad relationship between R&D and Quality Department could lead to work deficiency and further delays as well as many other barriers that would hinder the workflow in its right and proper way.
One way to overcome disagreements between these two departments is to limit the direct contact between R&D's and quality people as engineers and scientists would think in a completely different way, which could lead to a misunderstanding by the quality department. A training course for both department's employees would be a good idea to let each understand how to deal with the other side and to understand the exact role for each side so that none would do the work for the other side. Clear and well-defined rules and outlines for the company goals and duties for each department that could not be exceeded by any employer also would lower the chance of conflicts.
Setting the company environment to work as a group would also let everyone in all departments work together and have a better approach to deal with problems.
I worked as a QA co-op and experienced the conflict between QA and another department. The conflict I experienced was the QA department with the manufacturing department.QA is very by the book and ensure that all the procedures as well as the instructions are being followed. There was a lot of conflict on how we should fix part issues. The manufacturing department focuses on finding a solution to the problem even if it does not follow the quality standards sometimes. So there would be conflict because manufacturing department would present a solution and sometimes it cant be used or must be modified because of our quality standards.
Once possible way to improve this is to slowly update the procedures if the quality standards are too strict. Sometimes the procedures can be made too strict when it is not necessary or does not impact the parts that much. We had issues where we were scrapping a good amount of parts daily because of the procedures. So in one case we discussed the issue with the manufacturing team and decided to update the procedure. We noticed a significant reduction in scrapped parts. So working together with the other team and trying to understand both sides really helps reduce conflict.
It's definitely a delicate relationship between quality and R&D, but as long as you all understand the common purpose nothing is truly impassable. I have had to work with the J&J quality team specifically regarding the claims we make on our products. I was in charge on writing the documents in which we had substantiations for any claims we made for the products that were designed in my department. Since I knew I would be working almost solely with one person I made sure early to set up a meeting with them to get to know them and so that they knew who I was. It definitely has helped in my interactions with them because there have been times that we have gone back and forth of certain wording or the logic behind what is being written but at the end of the day we both understood that the product needed to go to market and that we cannot be the hold up. So if there was ever any issues that we couldn't work out over email we would just meet in person and discuss. So like most relationships communication is key. The two parties need to make sure that they are talking and not just dumping work on one another. And this extends upwards too. The low level grunts doing the actual work need to communicate but so do the directors. Even though they are not doing the actual work it is important that each department knows the concerns of the other to ensure good collaboration.
Whilst it may not always be easy to work with quality it is never impossible and in the end all departments are shooting for the same collective goal.
Certainly, having a department oversee another to ensure standards are met can easily create tension between the two. From what I believe, as well from what I've experienced in the industry, I've come to understand an effective way quality departments maintain good relations with other departments. Many times, teams such as R&D may get agitated if they must be constantly reminded by Quality to abide by certain regulations. Especially if designs and plans have already been made and do not meet quality specifications. This is all due to a lack of transparency between quality and the other department. I've noted that our R&D department is very knowledgeable in FDA regulations. Almost to the point they know as much as employees in quality. This is because they value meeting deadlines and do not wish to encounter any setbacks. Our quality department goes through extensive lengths to provide resources and information that each department should be aware of so that everybody is on the same page. All in all, as long as employees on both sides are thorough and diligent in their work, and as long as the communication between departments is continuous, tensions should either be minimal or non-existent.
As others have stated, the quality department must work with other departments in order to complete its main function. As such, it is important to make sure that positive interdepartmental relations are maintained. That means that each department should understand and respect the quality department and vice versa. Once that is established, the quality department must be active in being involved with the activities of the other department, as well as anticipate and report future issues they think might happen. That way departments such as the R&D department can be prepared should the issues arise or have a back up method in place. These preventive measures may take some extra time at the beginning but can prevent time consuming and costly mistakes from being made. Early correspondence will also foster a more familiar relationship. This will make it easier for departments to consult with the quality department before making any important decisions.
