Quality as a profession has evolved over a period of time. In prehistoric period Quality was practiced in form of the regulatory requirement. Hammurabi Code is known for the punishment to be met out by the builders/ masons if the house collapses and the people residing in the house suffer injury or death.
- Evolution is a process that is characterized by
- Variation
or change in more generic sense
The selection of variant that is most suitable and follows the principle of Evolution namely "Survival of the Fittest"
Quality journey in formal sense became necessary with industrialization. The era before mass production was characterized by the individual artisans, who managed the quality of their outputs by themselves. The initial methods of managing Quality were driven by INSPECTION and were controlled by profession that we know as Inspectors/ Testers etc. This new role actually created significant divide between the role of producer and the inspector. This divide is visible even today in many organizations and eliminating this divide is one of the biggest change management exercise for the Quality Professional.
The usage of statistics is the scientific community was well known. The tools used by the researchers crept into the organizations to manage business processes. These got formal name of Statistical Quality Control (initially used primarily by Inspectors) and then came Statistical Process Control (expected to be used by the Process Owners and Operators).
In the 1920's Shewhart introduced the concepts of statistical quality control. Statistical quality control provided the foundation for understanding and reducing variability through application of statistical theories. SPC tools provided the ability to ensure that processes and variability were controlled to provide consistent high quality telephones and networks for Western Electric and AT&T.
Dr. Deming provided the management philosophy of his theory of profound knowledge, and his 14 points, which were quite radical in his day
The process orientation led to think in terms of using tools to improve
- Effectiveness of the Process
- Efficiency of the Process.
The lack of above is expressed or reflected as problems in the operations.
The analysis of processes led to concepts of Business Process Reengineering. BPR Focused on making the business processes meaningful and eliminates unnecessary steps / activities. The concept emerged strongly later with Lean Methodologies.
On the productivity Side, in the first part of the 20th century Henry Ford introduced the Ford Production System, which provided the ability to mass-produce a Model T Ford in any color the customer wanted, as long as it was black. The Ford production system was the basis for the Toyota Production system. The Toyota Production System emphasized employee learning and empowerment for the first time. In the 80's, Just-in-Time principles arose as an off-shoot of the Toyota production system. The focus on JIT was to pull supplies and components through a system to arrive where and when they are needed.
As the Toyota Production System and JIT evolved and coalesced into Lean, the philosophies of TQM and the statistical theories of SQC evolved into Six Sigma.
Lean starts with an external focus on supplying the customer with exactly what the customer wants when they want it, through the value chain.
Six Sigma captured the voice of the customer and critical to quality characteristics, a rigorous and structured problem solving methodology, as well as a formal knowledge and tool belt structure, focus on the bottom-line impact of process improvement, and measurement and metrics.
Information Technology has evolved along with the management philosophies and problem solving tools, going from stand-alone software packages, with non-integrated modules, such as the financials, separate from MRP, separate from engineering, process, and production data, as well as customer information. ERP evolved to integrate the wide spectrum of processes and information that wasn't possible in the MRP and MRP II days.
Integration of Lean and Six Sigma enhanced the focus on eliminating waste AND reducing variability at the same time. Supply Chain concepts and tools have integrated the value chain with the information chain.
Further integration of the supply chain with lean six-sigma is already being most talk about concept today. This will lead to focus on improving up and downstream through the supply chain with the suppliers and the distributors.
TQM - Total Quality Management became huge in the 80's and 90's, and was the formulation of many of the quality guru's management philosophies, including Deming, Juran, Crosby, and Feigenbaum.
It was light on statistical tools and problem solving methodology and left that almost to chance, but provided for employee involvement, team-based brainstorming and problem solving, employee empowerment.
Innovation:
Innovation has remained part of Human Evolution in different form. Use of wheel and fire for enhancing quality of life is an example of early innovations.
Innovation as an economic concept includes development of new:
- Products and services (Ginger Hotel Chain)
- Methods of production or provision (Cellular Manufacturing concept)
- Methods of transportation or service delivery (ATM)
- Business models (Crowd Sourcing and Social Networking Platform for business)
- Markets
- Forms of organization
Stereotypically innovation is considered a product of genius, a flash of light. However, the practitioners have evolved systematically planned and organized innovations.
Future of the Quality Tools
Tools:
Tools developed and evolved can be classified in broadly two categories
People Centric
These tools have evolved and become stronger due to
- Availability of better skills
- Aspiration of more skilled employees to be part of improvement journey
- Most employees reaching and striving for higher level of Maslow's hierarchy of motivation
Data Centric
The tools here were largely through statistics and application of statistical approaches. Initially it was largely Bayesian statistics and later the inferential statistics become stronghold. This is becoming stronger with quantity of data that is available now for studies.
It was easier to implement largely due to availability of skilled manpower and also availability of software that assist in using these tools easily.
Some direction on specific areas could be
- Six Sigma
- Reduction in Cycle Time as project area is most common and is considered to be most beneficial to the customer and industry
- Inclusion of Vendor's organization in Six Sigma Projects
- Integrating Six Sigma with other initiatives
- Restructuring of time allocation within the DMAIC and PDCA Structure
- The Impact of Technological Advancements
- Modeling Tools
- Impact of Global Recession
- Open Source Innovation
- Quality Tools Deployment would be through automation and also building AI / Neural Network concepts
- Documentation of learning and project would become a specialized skill
Challenges in Quality Management
- Larger base of knowledge and data
- The pace at which the options are available to consumer
The fast pace life of consumer and hence changes in demand at high speed
The challenges in general can be detailed as below:
Ever Demanding Customers
Increased options and greater knowledge on the product life cycle has definitely led to ever increasing demands.
Shifting Customer Value Perception
The life of a value perception is shorter as the product life itself is coming down. The new products introduction, which used to take years, now takes months. The value perception is also frequently subjected to changes due presence of strong media and internet that provides faster information about product and businesses.
Increasing Economic Pressures
Generally demand on all resources has increased sharply. The pressure on organization to perform at higher level is increasing. The organizations performance is being micro viewed by the investors in short run. In fact long term has become either obsolete or the period of long term has come down significantly.
Reduced Control over Data and Information
With internet and computerization, the access and availability of data is relatively easier. RTI has further changed the dimension of the data availability for any analysis and working.
Recognition of Softer Issues in Business Process
With growth in the knowledge of the worker, and the trend of businesses becoming more knowledge focus, the management processes calls for looking into softer issues of Human Relations within and out of the Business Processes. In early part of 20th century Ford wanted only two hands and two legs, but today organizations want the matter above the shoulder more importantly than the limbs. This has definitely forced organization to look into the softer side of human management. The human resource management moved from treating human as another article to a resource that can contribute and enable better utilization of other resources.
Risk Based Management Approach
Risk based management approaches emerged more strongly towards the end of the 20th century and is becoming stronger area of specialization and focus for business entities. While initially the risk was associated only with finance management, but today the risk based approach has been extended to management of Product Development, Process, Employees, Environment etc.
The risk based approach itself has moved from being subjective to an objective evaluation of the risk.
