What is the perfect Quality Policy?

[Jim Mitchell]

What is the perfect Quality Policy?

You know what I'm talking about. That little paragraph that everyone in the entire company from the Prez to the floor sweeper is suppose to memorize and regurgitate back to the auditor and explain what it means to them.

My personal favorite is:

Continuous improvement to exceed the customer's expectations to ensure that the customer comes back and the product does not!

~Jim Mitchell

[Jennifer Kirley]

Originally Posted by Jim Mitchell

What is the perfect Quality Policy?

You know what I'm talking about. That little paragraph that everyone in the entire company from the Prez to the floor sweeper is suppose to memorize and regurgitate back to the auditor and explain what it means to them.

My personal favorite is:

Continuous improvement to exceed the customer's expectations to ensure that the customer comes back and the product does not!

~Jim Mitchell

I like it! It is one that can be remembered, not needing to be printed on cards and given to everyone to memorize like an exam question.

[RCBeyette]

Originally Posted by Jim Mitchell

What is the perfect Quality Policy?

You know what I'm talking about. That little paragraph that everyone in the entire company from the Prez to the floor sweeper is suppose to memorize and regurgitate back to the auditor and explain what it means to them.

My personal favorite is:

Continuous improvement to exceed the customer's expectations to ensure that the customer comes back and the product does not!

~Jim Mitchell

First off, welcome to the Cove, Jim!

Have you tried doing a search here on the Cove with "quality policy" as your search criteria. You'll get a lot of hits!

We've had discussions on Quality Policies and one thing that I will guarantee you is that there is no concensus on the perfect one!

First off, you'd have to define the term perfect.

Secondly, you find two very large camps on the use of the word exceed. Issues like:

• Why exceed?
• How do you measure if you've exceeded?
• Does exceed mean you have not met the Customer's requirements?
• ...and so on

I will admit, though, I adore that part about the Customer coming back and the product not! Very creative! And very powerful!

At the end of the day, the Quality Policy must meet the needs of your organization and stakeholders. The perfect Quality Policy is one that inspires the troops, reduces (if not completely eliminates) errors, and serves as the guiding principle of your Management System. I look at the Quality Policy this way...should an employee ever face a Quality dilemma, the Quality Policy should help to point them in the proper direction.

[Claes Gefvenberg]

Welcome to the Cove, Jim . Interesting first post

Originally Posted by Jim Mitchell

ensure that the customer comes back and the product does not!l

I like that one...

/Claes

[skumar]

Originally Posted by Jim Mitchell

What is the perfect Quality Policy?


Continuous improvement to exceed the customer's expectations to ensure that the customer comes back and the product does not!

~Jim Mitchell

Same situation happened with me when "customer came back" shouting that the product is so hopeless that now it is not even in the condition that it can be returned back.
Perhaps I met the policy as "Customer came back but Product did not."

[Jim Wynne]

Originally Posted by Jim Mitchell

That little paragraph that everyone in the entire company from the Prez to the floor sweeper is suppose to memorize and regurgitate back to the auditor and explain what it means to them.

I think that should be, "That little paragraph that the prez initiates and everyone else is supposed to understand and accept."

If the quality manager (or the floor sweeper) is given the responsibility to define the company's quality policy (i.e., to formulate an insipid motherhood statement as a substitute for an actual quality policy) something is seriously wrong, and the most important point of quality system development has been missed.

[Jim Mitchell]

Originally Posted by JSW05

I think that should be, "That little paragraph that the prez initiates and everyone else is supposed to understand and accept."

If the quality manager (or the floor sweeper) is given the responsibility to define the company's quality policy (i.e., to formulate an insipid motherhood statement as a substitute for an actual quality policy) something is seriously wrong, and the most important point of quality system development has been missed.

Yes, I agree with that in theory... However, after spending over 20 years in Quality Management in the real world, I believe that in most cases the reality of the situation is that the Prez conveys his vision to the Quality Manager (QM), who condenses that into something that the rest of the company can understand and remember. Then the QM get's the Prez's approval and it then becomes the QM's responsibility to publish and train, etc...

I've beat my head against many a bloody wall in the attempt to educate CEOs who only want to see that cert on the wall and not otherwise be bothered about it.

The battle continues but you do what you gotta do to survive to continue the fight.....

~Jim Mitchell

[Cari Spears]

Originally Posted by Jim Mitchell

...in most cases the reality of the situation is that the Prez conveys his vision to the Quality Manager (QM), who condenses that into something that the rest of the company can understand and remember. Then the QM get's the Prez's approval and it then becomes the QM's responsibility to publish and train, etc...

I've beat my head against many a bloody wall in the attempt to educate CEOs who only want to see that cert on the wall and not otherwise be bothered about it...

That's because someone came along and told him his vision is no good because it does not have an introductory paragraph and the words "continuous improvement" in it.