How Quality Supports RESILIENT Operations

This series explores how to ignite excitement and make quality relevant in your organization.  This is the number one barrier for quality within organizations - getting the necessary buy-in, support and engagement from all areas of the business.  

The trouble is, throughout generations, "quality" is very rarely seamlessly assimilated into daily operations.  This series will dive into what traditional operations-centric organizations value most and how to plug "quality" in to support those values.  

SUBSCRIBE today and the series will come to you weekly to help UNITE your quality efforts with your business operations to get MORE VALUE. 

As cited in a previous installment of this series, "QualiFIRE", Forbes Magazine recently published 8 Business Trends for 2022, a major one being the desire for resilient operations.  So, if resilient operations are important, how can our quality practices support this value?  

Resilient operations means being able to "adapt and survive for the long term".  This is a key business value which has surged and declined in importance over the past several decades.  In boom times, we tend to push "long term" thinking aside in terms of short-term gains.  But, today, we're trending toward thoughts of sustainability, resiliency and the long game.

In this series, when speaking of these key business values, I'm committed to specifically addressing how the quality system can support (or impede) these values.  First, let's talk specifics with our management systems.  We need to ask ourselves some very tough questions on this topic.  If our management systems are complicated, difficult to integrate into our daily operations, or difficult to maintain, this must change.  It is impossible to be resilient in an overly complex system.  And this is a very common reason quality systems fail.  

Being even more specific, let's look at the typical amount of documentation in a quality management system.  And the tools we use to maintain that documentation.  The very infrastructure upon which our system is built can make or break its success.  The system MUST be designed for the user experience, PERIOD.  No matter how cool a tech-centric quality person may think a system is - if the users can't use it, it isn't cool AT ALL.  Likewise, the availability and accessibility of the information.  If the user can't access the information when they need it, where they need it, it's useless.  Further, if the information is available when they need it, where they need it, but there's just too much of it, it's also useless.  The importance of this point of construction of the quality system cannot be overstated.  And, too many organizations neglect to take the time to establish this critical foundation.  

How about our lean practices?  Is resiliency addressed in our lean practices?  Where we have implemented 5S, kan ban, visual management, have we been mindful of how resilient those practices are over time?  It's a good bet that most organizations will struggle with 5S over the long haul.  So many implementations of this basic methodology have to be repeated over and over again until what is actually "4S" matures into the real "5S".  And whenever changes are made to a process, 5S tends to slide again.  Again, our lean practices must be designed to be resilient, to ensure they can roll with the punches as time marches on.  And we all cringe at the idea of any initiative being a "flavor of the month".  Flavor of the month is the opposite of resilient.  

How about our six sigma methodologies and tools?  Are we applying our six sigma technologies in a way that supports resiliency? Where we are applying these tools, what are the objectives?  Are the goals and objectives reviewed and revised as dictated by changes to the business environment?  Are the applications of these tools consistently applied?  It's important, again, not to have six sigma come to town with a bang only to be forgotten after one or two successes.  

This week's HOW TO GET IT DONE:

1. Consider whether "resiliency" is a core value at your organization - why or why not?

2.  Consider the actual infrastructure of the quality system.  Is it easy to understand?  Is it easy to navigate?  Is it "alive" (meaning it changes easily in response to changes in the business, processes, practices, etc)?  Solicit input from a broad sample of users - sort of a customer survey, if you will.  One good indicator is whether the quality system and the resources available are used for onboarding and training.  If not, take another look.  No quality system should be constructed around "auditability".  It should always be about the user experience if it is to support a business value of resiliency or long-term viability.

3.  Consider the application of lean practices - are they very project specific in nature with a goal of a specific, quick impact without follow up to continue leveraging the improvements?  Or are areas/processes targeted, improved and revisited for new opportunities on a regular basis?

4.  Consider where six sigma methodologies are utilized.  Is this a coordinated effort across the business to continually find and optimize standardization?  Or is it fragmented?  Are the activities well-resourced enough or is six sigma something being focused on by just engineering or the "belt folks"?  Long term, six sigma only works if it is continually refined, practiced and improved.  

One of the most important things to remember, all-the-time, is that quality efforts exist for the sole purpose of supporting successful operations and the customer experience.  Our constant pursuit must be to leverage our management systems (ISO9001, ISO45001, ISO14001, IATF16949, AS9100, etc) PLUS our lean practices PLUS our Six Sigma tools PLUS our continual improvement efforts toward the achievement of better outcomes for operations and the customer experience.  

For some new ideas on this, get Tribal Knowledge - The Practical Use of ISO, Lean and Six Sigma Together, a simple guide to UNITE ISO9001, lean and Six Sigma to create a robust quality system with better results.  Read what ASQ American Society for Quality – Quality Progress Magazine had to say about it.