Share | Insights from a seasoned quality professional: What exactly is quality?

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Many times, it’s interesting to visit some forums and browse the posts and discussions related to “quality management”. Recently, I came across a post online; the verification expert has summarized its contents below for everyone’s discussion. If you have any thoughts, feel free to leave them in the comments section below and see what other quality professionals have to say. 1. My job: I am a production site manager at a state-owned enterprise. I have been working in charge of production processes on the factory floor for over eight years now, and I have a fairly thorough understanding of the quality issues faced by this company. Here, I would like to share my views on the current quality problems as well as the future directions for improvement. I do not consider myself to be absolutely correct, and I hope that through discussions with others, I can learn more new things and gain a deeper understanding of quality. My job is to handle any abnormalities that may arise during the production process – things like damaged molds or improper operations that result in defective products. I go to the site to provide guidance and take care of these issues. I am not directly involved in producing the products; that is the workers’ task. My role is to guide the workers and deal with the defective products when such issues occur. In my daily work, I interact the most with quality control personnel, as they are responsible for assessing the products to be processed. If they sign off to approve their release, it helps to reduce waste losses. Of course, this is on the assumption that everyone is aware of the defects in the products; I would never approve the release of products that are clearly defective and should be discarded. Since we manufacture non-critical components, minor visual defects do not affect their normal use in assembly, we engage in extensive communication with the quality control staff regarding such issues in an effort to reduce waste and losses. The above is an introduction to my work. Since the content of this article is all related to my work, it is presented at the beginning so that readers won’t get confused when they reach the later parts. 2 What exactly is mass? The first point to mention is that we rely increasingly on quality, while ignoring what is most essential about it. Company executives believe that quality determines the quality of a product – that good products come from good quality and bad products from poor quality – but this is actually a serious misunderstanding of what quality really is. The biggest problem in quality management today is the emphasis on numbers; for many professionals in this field, quality is nothing more than a collection of statistical figures. Don’t think that those who hold quality certification or titles are particularly outstanding – in fact, most of them don’t really have a proper understanding of quality. In the process of quality management, one only ends up working harder and achieving worse results. This leads to the most fundamental question: what exactly is quality? What exactly is quality? A friend asked: According to the definition in ISO8402 “Quality Terms”, quality is the sum of characteristics that reflect an entity’s ability to meet explicit or implicit requirements. There isn’t much to say about this definition; the key question is: does the definition of “quality” proposed by the so-called international standard system correspond to the meaning of “quality” that we truly desire? What exactly do we want? Many people in charge of quality have never thought about this question. In the company where I work, those responsible for quality want statistical figures showing that the pass rate is over 95 percent, regardless of whether such figures are meaningful or not. There is an English proverb that goes, \"Read between the lines,\" meaning that when reading something one should discern the true meaning hidden between the words. Reading and analyzing reports is a fundamental task for quality control professionals; yet aside from determining whether numbers are above or below a certain threshold, no one really thinks about or summarizes anything else. For example, once while reviewing statistical reports, I noticed that a particular product had a daily qualification rate of 98 percent. However, between 11:30 a.m. and 1 p.m., a certain amount of defective products were produced each day. The quantity was not large, so it did not affect the overall qualification rate. But I wanted to find out the real reason behind this. After asking the team leader and the operators, I discovered that they would go for lunch during that time period, which meant the products remained in the molds for too long. As a result, defective products were generated during that fixed time frame. Since the quantity was small, it wasn’t given much attention. But in my opinion, this is a serious problem. Although it doesn’t cause any major issues at the moment, over time it could lead to significant quality problems. There are more such cases than just this one. It seems to me that many quality control professionals still understand reports at a numerical level only, failing to see the underlying problems behind them; they think that as long as the percentage reaches over 95%, there will be no issues ； Moreover, quality staff have a severe lack of understanding of the actual site conditions, which directly results in them becoming trapped by the figures in the reports and being unable to do anything meaningful. The overall direction of quality: What I discuss here is mainly the general direction in which quality should develop; specific examples cannot be used to refute this view. For instance, when I talk about the issues related to CPK and PPK, I’m not saying that CPK and PPK are incorrect in themselves. Rather, from the perspective of the overall direction in which quality should evolve, CPK and PPK do not represent the correct path. Although CPK and PPK have their applications in practical situations, they are not the right approach from an overall developmental standpoint. Discussing the overall direction is not about figuring out how to do a good job in terms of quality; it’s one thing to consider the long-term path forward, and another to address the immediate need to ensure people have enough to eat. What I mainly want to talk about is the overall direction, not how to improve things right now. In my opinion, it’s very difficult to do a good job in terms of quality under the current conditions – there’s a lack of flexibility in thinking, employees follow the lead of their leaders without being able to come up with innovative ideas. In state-owned enterprises, what the leaders say is always considered correct, and all these obstacles prevent effective and bold efforts to improve quality. So I can only discuss Marxism until the revolution succeeds; as for how to achieve that revolution, that’s beyond my capabilities. There is a saying: third-rate companies sell products, second-rate companies sell brands, while first-rate companies sell standards. Here, products, brands, and standards all imply the concept of quality. Although international standards provide a definition of quality, it is merely a basic one; the meaning of quality goes far beyond that. It’s like in exams – the international standard definition of quality corresponds to 60 points, which is just enough to pass. That is the standard for third-rate companies. If you are content to remain at the level of third-rate companies, then international standards are suitable for you. Products from third-rate companies represent poor quality ； Second-tier companies offer a higher level of quality beyond just product quality, and this is what is known as a brand ； First-class companies achieve a higher level of quality based on their brand, which is known as standards. Therefore, quality practices are not exactly the same across all companies. It is meaningful to determine what level of company you belong to, or what level you aim to achieve, before discussing quality; otherwise, it’s absurd for a third-rate company that lacks ambition to try to meet the standards of first-class companies by using fake documents to pass inspections. 4 Quality Control Methods. Everyone is likely familiar with quality control methods, such as control charts and cause-and-effect diagrams for quality control, as well as PFMEA and DFMEA. On the surface, these are all quality management tools. As I mentioned earlier, quality management is not an independent discipline; rather, it is highly interdisciplinary in nature. So, do the various methods of quality management have a source? Of course there is. The origin of quality management methods lies in social survey methods; to put it another way, quality management methods are actually a branch of social survey methods. Perhaps many people are not familiar with the term \"social survey,\" but literally speaking, what is the subject of a social survey? Of course it’s society! Based on their many years of work experience, could everyone conclude that the various members involved in quality work form a kind of micro-society? Each member has their own responsibilities, faces various conflicts of interest, and there is also a need for cooperation and unity – all of which make it possible to consider this as a kind of society. The quality management practices described in traditional books are often based on rigid rules, telling people what they can do and what they cannot do; as a result, people tend to view quality management as something involving constant strictness, evaluations, fines, and departments that end up being labeled as those that receive the most criticism. In fact, from a ‘social’ perspective, quality management can be flexible and more human-centered as well. According to textbooks, the main components of social research include: the selection of research topics and the design of surveys, sampling, measurement, data collection, data processing, the use of statistical software and preparation for statistical analysis, the statistical analysis of data, and the writing of research reports. Do you think these elements show a striking similarity to the tasks involved in quality control work on a daily basis? The selection of investigation topics and the design of investigations are, in essence, nothing but the QC methods ； Sampling and measurement – these go without saying, they’re the most basic tasks ； Statistical analysis of data is surely an essential skill ； Writing investigation reports – who hasn’t written a quality report? As can be seen from the above explanation, there is a close relationship between quality management methods and social survey methods. The most critical issue at present is that quality management focuses too much on the end stages of the production process, while neglecting the harmony within that process. It should be emphasized here that harmony does not mean compromising on principle in order to achieve good interpersonal relationships; rather, it refers to the rationality and coordination among various stages of production. It is not simply about harmonious interpersonal relations. In many companies, quality management decisions are made arbitrarily by managers, and one of the key skills for such managers is to balance interpersonal relationships. As a result, this leads to imbalances in the production line and uneven workload, causing numerous complaints. There is no need to go into further detail on this point – I believe everyone has a deep understanding of it. After talking so much, the most important idea is that I hope quality management will move in the direction of social research in the future. Currently, there is too much emphasis on numbers in quality management, with too little consideration for human factors. Social research, on the other hand, is based on both rationality and emotion, as well as quantitative and qualitative aspects. By learning more about social research, we can shift the focus of quality management from products to society. With thorough research and persistent effort, I believe that significant achievements can be made in quality management! - End -