How to convince management that Quality Assurance adds Value

[David Mullins]

Lost, one plot.
Please return to this thread.

Sorry to throw this in, never can help myself.
You may recall the original context of the adding value question???

Take Sam's list of actual value-added items. Can we measure these over time and demonstrate that "quality improvements" (whatever that means) improved results, thus quantifying that quality added value?

So, is auditing a value added thing - no, not when assessed in isolation. But, an organisation is a whole, and the question is did auditing add value to the whole.

REMEMBER - if a process doesn't add value then you shouldn't be doing it.

If you've got a quality manager,coordinator or department that doesn't add value to your organisation, get rid of them/it and find a real one that benefits (adds value) the whole organisation.

If you guys don't think you're adding value, how can you contemplate measuring it?

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[Graeme]

Sometimes the value is in the costs that never happen because the Quality department is there. This can start with things that have been discussed here, such as the various costs of nonconformance. But sometimes there are other costs that are avoided -- costs to society.

For instance, I once worked at a Naval Shipyard where, among other things, we overhauled and refueled nuclear-powered ships and submarines. Once I had the misfortune to be involved in an "Activity Based Costing" study done by an internationally known accounting and consulting house. One result of the study was that the entire Quality operation - and particularly the Nuclear QC part of it - was a non-value-added, non-mandatory cost and could be eliminated.
... pause for you to reflect on that ...
How would that conclusion go over in your home city? Or with the folks who go down into the sea in submarines? I certainly would not want to be anywhere within 100 miles ... or on board the ships.

Needless to say, that was one of the major reasons the study was ditched. "Your tax dollars at work."

 

[Kevin Mader]

Al,

Please continue on your train of thought. Doing calibration for your suppliers for break-even might produce gains elsewhere in the System, especially the Organization with improved quality, reliability, and delivery of parts. There are other gains such as increased rapport and loyalty which can not be measured, but surely appreciated.

Here is something more from Sam's post above to consider.

1- You accept an order to make a part.
No value added

Does accepting an order generate value that your supplier needs? How about staffing to make the part? Does this add value to the community by creating a work opportunity (gainful employmenty keeping people off of assistance)?

This is an interesting thread. The many contributors here have created good discussion!

Back to the group....

Regards,

Kevin

 

[SteelMaiden]

Interesting stuff here. I've been away for a while and catching up. The value added topic is very interesting to me because we are nearing the end of our start-up and beginning to focus on improvements. One of those being that we will consider "value added" as a portion of all quality planning done in conjunction with improvement projects.

I do have a couple of comments about the value added (or not) activities as outlined earlier:
5- the inspector inspects
no value added
6- the auditor audits
no value added

There are industries out there that charge over and above std. terms for inspection, therefore inspection can definitely be value added.

Auditor auditing in and of itself may not be value added, but from my experience at the previous division I worked for, once we were certified to ISO, we definitely got bigger orders from a select group of customers. When we went QS we not only increased orders from current customers, we gained several big accounts that would never have looked at us if we weren't certified.

So I guess in my opinion, I'd have to say that auditors auditing can be value added.

Keep up the good work!

 

[energy]

Sorry, This topic is dear to my heart and livelihood.

A good functioning Quality Department gives the appearance that all's well in the operation of a company. The controls are in place and the Inspectors and QA/QC Mgrs have the headaches. This works so well that it looks like it's easy to replace with something else. I say "Go for it!" You know the old saying-one step forward and three steps backward.

energy

 

[Rick Goodson]

Just to muddy the waters a bit...

There are actually three divisons; customer value added activities, business value added activities, and non-value added activities. Customer value added activities are those activities that a customer would be willing to pay for because it increases the value of the product or service contracted for. Business value added activities are those that the business needs to perform to conduct its business and a customer would pay for. Non-value added activities are those that remain. The obvious question then becomes, what is a business value added activity?

An example of a business value added activity is processing payroll. Processing payroll adds no value to the product or service, however a reasonable customer would be willing to pay for that activity as they realize employees must be paid if they are to do productive work. Calibration of equipment is another example of a business value added activity. And that leads to the question of QA. Is QA a business value added activity? IMHO inspection is not value added, quality assurance activities for the most part are value added. Other thoughts?

Rick

 

[Kevin Mader]

Rick,

I think that you are wrong. Your comments clarify the picture rather than muddy it as you suggest.

The three areas you proposed can easily be related (and in fact, are) to the Components of a System as I stated earlier. Although your view is narrowed to a few relationships (many only view the linear relationship proposed in ISO9000 and consider this the System), your general comments point to Systems Thinking.

I would encourage the group following this thread to explore the Components in a System and think about what they Value or find of worth. Sadly, we are generally narrow in our view as we become further conditioned by prevailing paradigms in management and culture. The old cliche of 'thinking out of the box' isn't really all that cliche-ish.

What do you think? What is the value stream?

Regards,

Kevin

 

[Paul Wildsmith]

Many thanks to all who have responded to my original post. It has helped a lot (at least, made me feel less alone!).

I'm about to survey my 'customers', the project and engineering managers on both what they think QA should do (or shouldn't) and what are current performance is. If anyone has a similar survey/questionnaire available, I'd be glad of a copy.

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