Reflections on Quality | Quality is the lifeblood of a company, so why is the quality department in such an awkward position?

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Many companies believe that quality is the lifeblood of a business. Business managers also place great importance on quality. But they prefer to invest more sales staff in promoting products, more technical personnel in designing and developing them, more production workers in manufacturing them, and even many financial professionals to accurately calculate the costs of the products, purchase prices, and sales profits. The only thing that is neglected is the investment in quality. In a chemical manufacturing company with over 300 employees, there are only two people responsible for quality control. One is responsible for inspection, while the other is in charge of the system as well as project management. In a gearbox manufacturing company based on the Chinese mainland, the number of employees in the after-sales service department is much higher than that in the quality control department. In companies with poor quality, it is quite common for there to be more after-sales service staff than members in the quality control department. Enterprise managers are often more eager to resolve issues arising with customers; therefore, they continuously hire more after-sales service staff. And it’s not clear what quality personnel actually do; either more inspectors need to be hired. Those in charge of the quality system usually just wait for the system audit to arrive, organizing various departments to prepare the documents required for that audit, in order to maintain the ISO certificate. Some companies simply reduce the number of staff in their quality management systems, or have employees take on additional duties, or even hire temporary personnel from outside to handle the ISO audits. When employees in a company slack off or perform poorly for various reasons, or become too old to be assigned to certain tasks but cannot be dismissed, they are sent to the quality department. When a company faces a crisis and needs to lay off employees, it is often the staff in the quality department who are laid off first. Business managers often consider the quality department to be unnecessary, as it doesn’t generate any benefits or results. Salespeople handle orders, designers create the drawings, the procurement department purchases materials, employees manufacture the products, and after-sales staff provide service – so what use is there for quality control personnel? Therefore, in private enterprises in China, the person in charge of the quality department has the toughest job, and this is also the position with the highest turnover rate. One company even changed its quality managers four times in just one year. In Guangzhou, there is a company that has been in operation for over a decade, yet the longest-serving quality manager there has only worked there for 8 months. But these two companies went bankrupt soon after. In foreign-funded enterprises in Europe and the US, the positions with high turnover rates are often those of HR manager, procurement manager, and finance manager. In contrast, the heads of quality departments tend to remain in their positions for a long time. Once, someone posted online that they had worked as a quality manager in a foreign-owned company for 16 years, and many found it hard to believe. The condition of the quality department, which is crucial to the life of a company, also determines, to a large extent, the company’s development. The average lifespan of private enterprises in China is only 11 years, and most of those that go bankrupt do so because their quality is not up to standard. Enterprise management consists of three main aspects. First is people, second is money, and third is products (including services). The human resources department manages the people in the company, while the finance department manages the company’s money. And which department should be in charge of the company’s products? When a problem arises with a company’s products, the first thing that comes to mind is how the quality department manages things This also shows in practice that products are something the quality department should take care of. But with all these phenomena, how can the quality department manage products properly? The human resources department controls the fate of each individual within the company, while the finance department oversees the flow of money. These two departments are often those on which managers rely and pay close attention to; no one in the company dares to offend them. But what can a company’s quality department do? Without the support of managers, it might become a department where various teams can shift responsibility to, with the quality department serving as the perfect scapegoat. This is very common in many Chinese companies. How to strengthen the role and status of the quality department so that it does not become a victim is now a matter of survival for the enterprise. This cannot fail to draw the attention of managers in Chinese enterprises. This also relates to the issue of investment that companies make in their quality departments. There was the owner of a private enterprise who understood that quality was extremely important; as the company was growing rapidly, he was worried about facing setbacks, so he provided whatever was needed for the quality control department – staff and equipment alike. Even quality personnel outnumber the technical staff; the drawings, technologies, and process standards for German products are very clear – the key lies in implementation. Therefore, although the R&D department did not have much accumulated experience in a short period of time, the quality control department had strong execution capabilities, which enabled the company’s product quality to surpass that of its competitors quickly. In a very short period of time, the company’s product volume ranked it 11th in the world within its industry, while its quality placed it 2nd in China within that same industry. A private enterprise that aims to achieve breakthrough development, however, presents a completely different picture. In the 15 years since the quality department was established, 13 different people have held the position of head. The new product projects developed by the company lack project quality engineers; there are no supplier quality engineers at all, let alone R&D quality engineers and customer service quality engineers. That’s why R&D projects always result in one failure after another; new products come with many issues, and customers quickly lose confidence once they are launched on the market. As a result, the company was unable to emerge from its difficulties for a long time. Even with tens of millions invested in research and development, there was not much impact. However, if more qualified professionals and specialized testing equipment are invested, it actually won’t take a cost of 2 million; the results will be completely different in that case. Many Chinese companies still adhere to traditional product development models; when they see other companies having products that sell well, they too decide to develop similar products. So, a few designers were brought in, drawings were obtained, and after some minor modifications they were given to the purchasing department to order the necessary components. The purchasers bought components they didn’t fully understand, and then handed them over to the quality control staff, who also had no idea what those components were. It is then given to the workers, who understand it only partially, to assemble; after assembly, it is briefly tested before being sent out for sale. Many issues in between were not adequately analyzed or effectively prevented; designers often deliberately concealed many problems due to pressure from project deadlines. As a result, once these products hit the market, the customers were treated like lab rats. For a product development model like this, a success rate of around 20% is already quite good. If a department gets involved in product development at an early stage, considers various issues from the customer’s perspective at all times, and analyzes newly developed products from a quality expertise standpoint promptly, it will **accelerate the pace of new product development**, and this will certainly **increase the success rate of such development projects**. Therefore, the success rate of new product development in some multinational companies can reach 80%. Such a striking ratio can help corporate managers see the value of investing in quality. A company’s products require professional management by the quality department; all the processes involved in product production need to be continuously improved by quality specialists, in order to enhance both efficiency and quality in the work. Investments in quality fall into two main categories: personnel and equipment. So, what percentage of resources should be allocated to quality personnel in enterprises? A construction machinery company located in Shaanxi has around 1,000 employees, of whom more than 50 work in the quality department, accounting for 5% of the total workforce. A well-known Chinese home appliance company has 1,500 employees, of whom over 200 work in the quality department, accounting for nearly 13%. In fact, it is estimated that the number of staff in the quality departments of many companies accounts for around 5% to 10% of the total workforce. The minimum value for this ratio is 5%, and the maximum value is 10%. If the proportion of qualified personnel invested is less than 5%, it will affect the development of the enterprise. Exceeding 10% may also lead to an excess of quality in the enterprise. The specific circumstances need to be considered based on the characteristics of the company’s products and the maturity of its management system. For professionals in the field of quality, this includes basic inspectors, quality statisticians and analysts, quality technical engineers who develop quality standards, address customer-specific requirements, and solve practical problems, document control specialists, system engineers, supplier quality engineers, R&D quality engineers, customer quality engineers, testing technology engineers, quality improvement engineers, as well as quality management personnel. What management in enterprises fears the most is a lack of systematization, and precisely this is the weakness of Chinese enterprises: the lack of systematization in management, in products, and in processes. These are all the strengths of the quality department. The most effective organization for linking together the dispersed and isolated business units is the quality department. By looking at the fact that ISO standards are both system management standards and product standards, one can understand the value that the quality department can bring. Similarly, for components purchased by a company and products produced, visual inspection alone is not sufficient. The investment in necessary professional testing equipment is also an important guarantee for quality inspection and professional product quality testing. It is impossible to imagine that the physical properties of raw materials, including corrosion resistance, strength, hardness, and viscosity, can be detected simply by visual inspection. It’s also unimaginable that one could visually determine weight, electromagnetic interference, three-dimensional dimensional compatibility, curvature of surfaces, and so on. If a company does not prioritize investing in professional measurement equipment, it can only rely on empty promises or slogans if it wants to ensure good quality. No pain, no gain! One investment, one report. Since it is known that quality is the lifeblood of a company, how should corporate managers allocate resources to quality – in other words, how should they invest in what constitutes the lifeblood of the company? Source: Internet