Laymen understanding of QMS

QMS is Quality Management System, which contains a set of documented Processes, Templates, Guidelines and Checklists.
The Objective of QMS is to document generic (Common and applicable to all) processes across the Organization and to establish controls on defined Processes.
A simple QMS can be in a folder comprises of multiple Sub-folders to provide room for individual department to define their processes.
In absence of QMS Products or Software Projects will execute on it's own. Say, If we have 5 Projects, Some projects will get success and some gets fail. We can not be able to maintain the same of level of performance for the two projects from the same customer. That is when we do analysis on projects went well and projects went bad and we will get a set of good practices from the successful project and Bad Practices from the unsuccessful ones.
Now let us say we just asked teams and not documented lessons learnt anywhere, and for some time people remember them and work on projects effectively. later they tend to forget or if the person leaves our organization and new employee joins, The new Joiners may commit the same previous mistakes and end up with similar disaster. Here we have risk of loosing customer permanently and we will loose our business reputation.
Let us consider the case we have written all the inputs from projects and we are maintaining a running workbook for all practices. This is called Documentation. Now one new Joiner came, the first thing we do is we will ask him to go through this work book first. There are less chances from new employ to commit the similar mistakes.
Ok..Now we are not sure whether that new employee went through all the documented list. To ensure his reading we will conduct one test. This is called Control.

Here is another scenario Ok we have documented all our business activities best practices and we are executing everything smoothly. All of sudden there is a sudden surge in attrition(People moving out of company), We will think why and ask persons why they are leaving.
First person said,
I am not satisfied with the work which is assigned to me... Here comes project management process
Second person said,
I am performing well and I have not considered for promotion and I got very less hike... Here comes HR Process
Third one says,
I am not happy with the facilities. Desks which we work on has pests, Rest room maintenance is bad, No cleaning, No Tea, etc., etc, all comes here is facilities and administration processes.
Fourth one says,
My code which I worked from past 6 months wiped out in one night. Our server management is bad and I need to start from the beginning and the deadline is next month. Now IT admin process comes to our plate.
Oh,
Now as a Old employee of the organization I am feeling bad for the employ exits and convinced management to solve all these issues. First I will search for any common best practices across the firms to address these issues. I will get all the solutions from external companies and documented them all, Implementation and of them across the projects and maintaining the same would be additional task. This is called QMS.
We have an International Standard for QMS which is applicable from Plastic industry to Aviation Industry called ISO 9001 which is generic and can be application to almost all industries.

Similar to ISO 9001, we have specific standards to address to some critical Industry needs.
ISO 27001: Information Security Management System
ISO 13485: Medical Devices Quality Management System
ISO 14001 : Environment Management System
ISO 50001: Energy Management System
ISO 22000: Food Safety Management System
ISO/TS/IATF 16949 : Automotive Quality Management System
ISO 22301: Societal Security-Business Continuity Management Systems

Japanese Quality Revolution

At first, Japan had a widely held reputation for less quality shoddy exports, and their goods were shunned by international markets. The birth of total quality in the United States, made major Japanese manufacturers converted from producing military goods for internal use to producing civilian goods for trade.

The quality movement in Japan began in 1946 (immediately after World War II) with the U.S. Occupation Force's mission to revive and restructure Japan's communications equipment industry. This led Japanese organizations to explore new ways of thinking about quality.

For this to make it possible Japan took help of two American quality experts, named W. Edwards Deming and Joseph M. Juran. The contributions of Deming and Juran emphasized the statistical quality control movement.

Japan rather than relying purely on product inspection, its manufacturers focused on improving all organizational processes through the people who used them. As a result, Japan was able to produce higher-quality exports at lower prices, benefiting consumers throughout the world.

Japanese manufacturers began increasing their share in American markets, causing widespread economic effects in the United States: Manufacturers began losing market share, organizations began shipping jobs overseas, and the economy suffered unfavorable trade balances. Overall, the impact on American business jolted the United States into action.

At first, U.S. manufacturers held onto to their assumption that Japanese success was price-related, and thus responded to Japanese competition with strategies aimed at reducing domestic production costs and restricting imports. This, of course, did nothing to improve American competitiveness in quality. As years passed, price competition declined while quality competition continued to increase. By the end of the 1970s, the American quality crisis reached major proportions, attracting attention from national legislators, administrators and the media.

In 1980, Finally U.S. organizations began to listen. The CEOs of major U.S. corporations stepped forward to provide personal leadership in the quality movement. The U.S. response, emphasizing not only statistics but approaches that embraced the entire organization, became known as Total Quality Management (TQM).

Impact of World War II in Quality

World War II(September 1, 1939 – September 2, 1945) war field,

There was a soldier from USA with gun in his hands and in the middle of his opponents. He triggered his gun when the opponent soldier tried to shoot him. Unfortunately the gun did not work. He keep on pressing the gun trigger meanwhile the opponents’ bullet went inside his body he collapsed there and then. Alas! A man died because of poor quality gun.

This was the situation almost all soldiers in World War 2 faced. If gun fires that’s good he will be saved if it’s not then he will be destroyed. At that time, military contracts were typically awarded to the manufacturer that submitted the lowest bid. Products were inspected on delivery to ensure conformance to requirements.

In the middle of the war i.e., at 1941 people realized the importance of quality in human safety. Then US took a decision on weapon selection. Unsafe military equipment was clearly unacceptable, and the U.S. armed forces inspected virtually every unit produced to ensure that it was safe for operation. This practice required huge inspection forces and caused problems in recruiting and retaining competent inspection personal.

To ease the problems without compromising product safety, the armed forces began to use sampling inspection to replace unit-by-unit inspection. With the aid of industry consultants, particularly from Bell Laboratories, they adapted sampling tables and published them in a military standard, known as Mil-Std-105. These tables were incorporated into the military contracts so suppliers clearly understood what they were expected to produce. The armed forces also helped suppliers improve quality by sponsoring training courses in Walter Shewhart’s statistical quality control (SQC) techniques.

But while the training led to some quality improvement in some organizations, most companies had little motivation to truly integrate the techniques. As long as government contracts paid the bills, organizations’ top priority remained meeting production deadlines. What’s more, most SQC programs were terminated once the government contracts came to an end.

History of Quality

Now a days Quality plays a predominant role in any Industry. World around us is demanding for more and more quality products in fact we aim at Zero defect Product. Sometimes we wonder how this quality initiated and it made us to lead a perfect living.

Ok, till where can I find its roots?

Here is the answer…

 Actually the quality movement started somewhere in 13^th century, can trace its roots back to medieval Europe, where craftsmen began organizing into unions called guilds. These guilds were responsible for developing strict rules for product and service quality. Inspection committees enforced the rules by marking flawless goods with a special mark or symbol. Since most craftsmen sold their goods locally, each had a tremendous personal stake in meeting customers’ needs for quality. If quality needs weren’t met, the craftsman ran the risk of losing customers not easily replaced. Therefore, masters maintained a form of quality control by inspecting goods before sale. They Developed a Strict Quality standards based on the customer requirement. Oh my God Quality Standards in those days!!!

Until the early 19th century, manufacturing in the industrialized world tended to follow this craftsmanship model.

Europe, from mid-1750s to early 1800s grew into the Industrial Revolution.  In 19^th Century they have developed Factory System where craftsmen’s trades are divided into specialized tasks. This forced craftsmen to become factory workers and forced shop owners to become production supervisors. Quality in the factory system was ensured through the skill of laborers supplemented by audits and/or inspections. Defective products were either reworked or scrapped.

This is about Quality’s genesis. Till here Quality is confined to customer desired product development.

Interesting??

Will continue posting on when mankind realized the importance of Quality