 |
| Written By Horizons International for GP Optimizer Summer 2012 Edition by Rockton Software |
Organizations that value a habit of extreme quality are organizations that can expect greater profit margins.
What if a “quality habit” became a virtue in your organization?
What if having better quality was more affordable than you think?
A Paradigm Shift to the Quality Habit
Improvements in the quality habit will typically lead to reduction in costs and increases in margin, at relatively lower cost compared to other investments in change. Yet, even in the face of the clear and obvious benefits of adopting a higher standard of quality, many organizations struggle with creating and improving their quality habit.
Organizations and individuals already committed to quality have a hard time conceiving of “the quality habit” as anything less than a permanent foundational philosophy. However, if we speak to those same groups about the development of their quality habit they will tell us that it was challenging to achieve and requires focus to maintain. In fact, in many cases we would hear there were several false starts to the process and that while the goal might have been ‘get it right the first time’ it actually took several attempts before the habit became fully ingrained in the organizational culture.
Given the data and anecdotal evidence of the benefits to a company’s bottom line of an effective quality habit, it is difficult to understand why the quality mission is not more robustly pursued and fundamental to all activities across organizations.
It turns out the answer is that this shift of creating a quality habit within an organization may be similar to creating a personally successful habit. The authors of the book “Change Anything: The New Science of Personal Success ” provide a useful explanation of how these hindrances affect our personal habits, along with useful insight, explanations and suggestions on how we can incorporate successful habits into our daily lives. In their explanation of successful habit building we are encouraged to see the building of good habits as less about will power and more about motivation and structure.
The authors identify three levels of habit forming: personal, social, and structural. Each of these levels has two facets, motivation, and ability. How then might we use this information on personal habit building to shift effective action for organizations?
Personal Habit Building Processes Can Create a Quality Habit
Personal: Individual employees must personally care about quality. They also must be given the empowerment to act on their caring. Employees must have a way to achieve the goals of quality. They must have the ability and access to the right skills and tools. Most importantly they must be able to promptly know if they are getting it right.
When these conditions are not present we find that personal frustration and consequent lack of motivation derails the quality habit.
Social: The social aspect of a quality habit in an organization is easy to recognize – the habit must be everyone’s job, not just the work of a select few. As an example, let’s consider the difference between accomplices versus friends, as part of the support structure for good habits. In the world of the habit of better eating, our accomplices will enable us to enjoy a celebratory meal, even though we are on a diet. Our friends are those who remember our diet goals and suggest an alternative celebration.
In the world of quality, our accomplices are those who encourage us to believe that the effort of our quality process is not really needed. They might use the example that it hasn’t gone wrong yet so why change? But our friends, those who truly support not just the quality mission but the responsibility we all have in delivering quality goods and services, will support the efforts and disciplines of our quality habit. They don’t just willingly follow procedures with patience and focus but actually embrace the information gains that are achieved from those efforts, encouraging others to do the same.
Structural: When we reach the structural level of building a successful quality habit we would want to see availability of formal methods for tracking our adherence to quality methods. These methods or tools need to be measurable and we need to be prepared and able to monitor and take responsibility for results. In addition, our monitoring needs to be timely otherwise we find ourselves too far removed from the original impact to properly evaluate and define consequences and will have lost the ability for effective corrective action.
We should also incorporate methods in our quality habit that acknowledge our successes. All too often when quality systems are manual or otherwise cumbersome we can begin to find that only errors are reported to a level of action. This focus on the negatives of mistakes can create an organizational awareness of quality as a problem creator, not a success driver, which is an attitude that erodes successful habit development and morale.
A Quality Habit Solution Creates Instant Feedback and Profit Growth
In establishing or developing a quality habit, organizations may find it beneficial to utilize a formal quality system such as Quality Essentials Suite. This solution provides unlimited user access and integrates with Dynamics GP products, including functionality for advanced lot management.
Utilizing software based systems with unlimited user licensing, real time data collection, analysis tools and reporting ensures that all three levels of successful habit formation are supported. Employees individually are motivated and have the ability to participate and monitor results. All members of staff can have access and visibility to relevant data, which reinforces the social level.
Finally, the structural level of successful habits is achieved through the use of a formal integrated and comprehensive system that includes certificates of analysis, non-conformance reporting, corrective action tracking and root cause analysis.
The use of a formal quality system will have a positive impact on employee morale resulting in improved customer satisfaction and rich rewards to the bottom line.
Download GP Optimizer Summer 2012 Edition by Rockton Software for more great content on how to make Microsoft Dynamics GP work simpler and easier.
No comments:
Post a Comment