"Process" is a major stumbling block for managers who think of business in terms of things - products, services, - and not the process underlying the creation of things. What is a process exactly? It is simply a repeatable activity or sequence of activities that somehow changes something. Processes take an input and convert it into an output.
Management Controllable
Managing and improving processes are arguably the most critical challenge for organizations pursuing total quality initiatives. The production of bolts and production of tractors are obviously both manufacturing processes. These can be managed with ISO 9000 quality systems and improved using structured quality improvement methodologies. But resolving customer complaints is a process, too, as are the recruiting, training, and development of employees. These seldom attract attention the way manufacturing processes do, in India, as well as much of the developed world.
To a total quality manager, processes are more important than things, because they are part of the system. A common mistake companies make in assessing their quality position is to think that recurring problems are attributable to an individual or to some special event. The fact is that most problems with production and service are not isolated incidents - they are built into the system. In other words, they are management controllable. The late Prof W Edwards Deming said that over 90 per cent of the "troubles" in a company can be attributed to systems. Consequently, fix the processes, and the products and services will take care of themselves.
Census of Processes
Any self assessment, be it against the Malcolm Baldrige criteria or the European Foundation for Quality Management criteria or the Ramkrishna Bajaj criteria, should be viewed as a census of processes in an organization. The identification and study of processes lead inevitably to the concept of continuous improvement. Why? Because processes, by definition, can never be solved. They can only be improved. Total quality managers are not inspectors, whose sole functions is to cull out flawed products and services. On the contrary, total quality managers are architects and designers who seek to improve the systems that create the things that customers purchase. This demands a paradigm shift. It may be worth noting that the 2000 version of the ISO 9000 system will be more aligned to the international quality criteria mentioned earlier.
Many companies question whether they need to invest the time or money to evaluate and improve their internal and low-frequency processes. In the Qimpro view, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link; your processes to deliver products and services are only as strong as the many subprocesses that compose them. Problems with supplier processes and internal support processes have a way of negatively affecting the products and services you offer to your end customers. After all, processes are the equivalent of arteries in respect of an organization. The cancer cells in the arteries of a company impact its overall performance. These cancer cells need to be eliminated through continuous improvement.
Cancer Cells
Companies that have invested in improving internal processes have benefited significantly. Examples abound of continuous quality improvement with respect to specific internal processes, even in India. The following is a sample of some improvements (or elimination of cancer cells):
- Reducing in burn injuries due to splashes in concast, Mukand
- Improving the quality of bought out component drawings, Mahindra and Mahindra
- Reducing energy consumed by technical services, Voltas
- Reducing pending orders net of stop dispatches in Calcutta depot, Nicholas Piramal
- Reducing electricity consumption, Punjab Tractors
- Reducing engineering downtime in curing area, Modi Rubber
- Reducing hazards in the factory, Otis Elevator
Self Assessment
In a self assessment exercise on process management, the major areas to address are:
- How are products and services designed to meet customer requirements?
- How are manufacturing or service-delivery processes controlled?
- How is the quality of systems, products and services assessed and improved?
- How is the quality of business processes, support services, and suppliers ensured?
Companies that score well in such an exercise are strong in "process thinking". They have evolved beyond managing products or developments in isolation, to managing the processes that combine activities across departments. Customers, suppliers and the company are brought together in a common alignment. High scoring companies develop comprehensive sets of measures to continually monitor the quality of their processes. They regularly evaluate the "fitness for use" of all their processes, practices, products and services with the never ending, single-minded purpose of improvement.
By contrast, companies that perform poorly in this category spend most of their time correcting mistakes rather than preventing them. Interfunctional cooperation is low, product/service concepts are "thrown over the wall", from marketing first to engineering and then to manufacturing. Control is loosely regulated, even if the organization has an ISO 9000 quality system in place. Organizations that have stopped at ISO 9000 quality systems, should score in the range of 20 to 25 per cent against international quality criteria.
Several companies in the House of Tatas have conducted self assessments against the Malcolm Baldrige criteria. At best, the companies have rated themselves around 40 per cent. While this is an excellent reflection of the integrity of the companies in the House, it also drives home the message the we need to have major breakthroughs on the journey to world class quality.
Conclusion
Management of process quality is mostly about the prevention of errors. It provides a foundation for building quality into production by eliminating errors at the source. It starts with the conversion of customer requirements into design features and then winds its way through process-quality assessment and control, and the quality of support services and suppliers. Naturally, there are many stops along the way to check for continuous improvement.
CREDITS: Suresh Lulla, Founder & Mentor, Qimpro Consultants Pvt. Ltd.