What are Quality Management Teams and how do they work?

[tomjess]

What are Quality Management Teams and how do they work?

I have to introduce it to my company. I am wondering how it works and what needs to be done.

Any ideas and pointers will be great

Thanks in advance

[sneekparty]

Hi Tomjess,

I am the first who reacts to your post, but I think I will not be the last..This is a subject where everybody has an opinion...so you came to the right place...

But now something about my experiences with QT (Quality Teams)..Well when we first started with QT we looked at where should we be focusing on in the first place...because you can't do the whole process at once...So we first focused our energy on just one department...(and not R&D, this is something where a lot of improvements can be made, but very difficult to start with)..
We then looked which persons should be capable to form the QT..
We started up a team...with disciplines from R&D until the packaging department...After determining the team..we began our first meeting..in which I and a member of the Board of Directors (important for commitment)...spoke about the goals we had for this team...after spoken generally we split up and gave them an assignment come up with at least one problem on the departement we want to discuss...

At the second meeting we discussed the problems and how we could solve those problems...after a while we came familiar with the process and we expanded it to more departments and once we even invited suppliers and customers to help us improve our processes...

Well hope this helps you...and I hope to hear from the others what they think about this subject...

Grtz,
Martin

[tomjess]

I should have written Quality Improvement Teams.

Sorry.

1: Define the problem
2: define the facilitator
3: Facilitator convenes a team
4: Facilitator ensures that there is a rep from all departments
5: Facilitator decides who the champion of the team will be
6: Facilitator ensures that all tools are available.
7: Facilitator ensures that meetings run smoothly
8: Facilitator ensures that all actions decided by the team are proper and acted upon

Notes:

-Make the group leader a person that has the ability to speak and to somewhat control a group.

-Make the loudest, most objectional person in charge of the team and give them the authority

-Some people don't say much in groups, but can have alot of positive input, give them an avenue to submit ideas and thoughts other than in an open meeting format

-Realize that as a facilitator that you might have to "shut" someone down. Do what you have to do to ensure the group dynamics.

-Make sure that facilitators have read a book or been trained in group dynamics.

-Know when to cut your losses if a group is not performing to the expected results. Everybody makes a mistake.

I have more, but I think you get the gist of my message!

[gpainter]

Do away with the "Q" word and make it Improvement Teams. This way it helps everyone and is not just another Quality thing that is the QA Departments deal.

[Kevin Mader]

I like to use the term "value makers" when addressing folks in the organization. Basically, I think that Value is at the center of the System.

Regards,

Kevin

[NITIN]

You could start process audits based on department relations defined by your QMS.Doing audits is a great way of learning and improving.