MANAGING FOR QUALITY DURING CHALLENGING TIMES

By: Gregory H. Waston

INTRODUCTION & ABSTRACT

Gregory H. Watson is Chairman Business Excellence Solutions, Ltd. (www.excellence.fi); President International Academy for Quality (http://iaq.asq.org/); Adjunct Professor Oklahoma State University (http://etm.ceat.okstate.edu/msetm/) and Past-President and Fellow of the American Society for Quality. A professional industrial engineer, Greg is an expert in quality sciences, applied statistics, reliability engineering, production operations, and business management.

Greg offers Six Sigma training for Black Belts and Master Black Belts through the Center for Excellence of Finland (www.laatukeskus.fi). He volunteers his time to global professional communities of industrial engineering quality and statistics. His hobbies are writing and encouraging developing nations to establish a national quality competence. He lives with his family in Helsinki, Finland, but the World is his workplace.

ABSTRACT

We are living in tumultuous times – faced with crises on seemingly all fronts: social, political, economic, environmental, as well as personal. Technology is changing so rapidly that it doesn't seem to have time to mature before it has already become obsolete. In such challenging times, we maintain a desire for quality performance as well as holding onto an expectation that products will remain reliable for the period of useful life that has been promised. But, it is not clear how to deliver quality in such circumstances when everything is in a process of change – indeed it seems like there is no area of our life that is willing to remain in a state of control for any substantial period of time. What is it that we can do? There are four basic keys to managing by quality: Maintaining dedication to exceptional customer experience with constancy of purpose; Managing business systems by focusing on work process improvement; Developing psychological sensitivity in the work environment to engage and motivate our employees. Making decisions using performance measurement supported by facts evaluated using business analytics. These keys to quality results will be discussed and linked to a management strategy for assuring the development of a reliable organization from the viewpoint of its customers.

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