The ultimate goal of those who care about quality – to fire themselves!

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To truly become a trouble-free company that focuses on prevention, it is necessary for every employee to truly understand the essence of quality. Quality, just like when most people play golf, often involves years of practice without ever truly understanding the essence of it. “The statement \"Quality is tested\" has been thoroughly refuted; those who still hold such a view probably have a way of thinking that dates back a hundred years. But there is no doubt that testing is an important part of quality management. So the next question is: what is the purpose of our testing? In the author’s view, testing is done in order to avoid having to test. These words may sound awkward, but they reflect the ultimate pursuit of those who prioritize quality. The author once joked that the highest level of achieving quality is to end up firing oneself, because if everyone were an inspector and everyone were a quality manager, there would be no need to have a separate quality department. It’s like saying that if soldiers are unemployed, there will be no wars; if doctors are unemployed, diseases will disappear. We need to hold such a beautiful wish, or regard it as a pursuit. A manager once told me, “In terms of quality management, we shouldn’t prepare autopsy reports; instead, we should prepare health check reports.” I completely agree with this! Autopsy reports for post-event examination, health check reports for pre-event prevention. I once heard a friend say, “To determine the level of quality management in a company, you don’t necessarily need to go to its factory or conduct a thorough audit of its quality management system. All you need to do is talk with the company’s leader and see how many times they mention prevention and continuous improvement during the conversation; that will give you a pretty good idea of the company’s quality management practices.” Unfortunately, many companies equate quality management with quality inspection; they even refer to the quality department as a quality control department, thereby limiting the functions of this department. The quality department is faced with a pile of \"failures\" every day and at a loss as to what to do; it has no time to focus on how to improve things and prevent such failures from occurring. This scene is often a source of regret! It is undeniable that ISO9001 is a good thing, but if you claim that any company has become \"superior\" just by obtaining quality system certification, then please allow me to show a sad expression! Why is the quality management system in a situation where customers do not trust it, managers dismiss it, and employees do not understand it? Perhaps some well-known summaries capture it perfectly: “It must be a systemic issue.” Yet despite such difficulties, every company remains keen on obtaining quality management system certifications, because it goes beyond the mere aspect of certification itself and becomes a matter of reputation – it’s as if you feel too embarrassed to even greet others without such a certification. As for the substance, whether it is beneficial to the company or whether it can add value, that may not be the main focus. Some might say that it is those unscrupulous certification companies that have caused this situation; here, I can only reply to you with that advertising slogan: no trade, no killing. We must admit that we have gone down the wrong path; what we need is not a quality system certification that has been compromised, and certainly not such a certification document that is as ordinary as a business license. Instead, it is implemented and improved in accordance with the system requirements, that is, the so-called PDCA. To conclude this article, let us use the words of quality master Deming: Quality, just like playing golf for ordinary people, often requires years of effort yet still fails to reveal its true essence. To truly become a trouble-free company that focuses on prevention, it is necessary for every employee to truly understand the essence of quality.