Celine D'souza
Registered
Reducing Scrap, reducing Non conforming material, increasing sales by reducing customer returns
Turning R&D projects into sales
Turning R&D projects into sales
I need your help to find the action plan for these quality objectives
- Thread starter Celine D'souza
- Start date
Increasing sales isn't a quality objective. Turning R&D projects into sales isn't a quality objective either. Scrap - is the same as noon-conforming material. Are these your only quality objectives?
qualprod
Trusted Information Resource
Remember you objectives have to be based on your quality policy
Most of the objectives I´ve seen:
1-To reduce scrap by XXX
2-To increase production rate by xxxx in assembly area
3-To reduce rejects by xxxxx
4-To increase performance
My two cents
qualprod
Trusted Information Resource
Auditfan
Why sales is not an objective?
If in your quality policy you state "company with profits "
and according to the standard, that abjectives have to be based on the QP
why not to set a goal in sales?
Where into the standard is prohibited to have sales in objectives?
Plase explain.
Sales are influenced by many aspects. The stated goal was "increasing sales by reducing customer returns" which infers that the number of customer returns was directly responsible for sales. While we could certainly agree that reputation based on number of defects is a driver of sales due to reputation, other factors could influence sales.
Looking at
Reducing Scrap, reducing Non conforming material, increasing sales by reducing customer returns
Turning R&D projects into sales
So, perhaps these are business objectives. Moving on:
If we want to reduce scrap - we need to understand what is the process that makes scrap? Why is it we had to declare this "stuff" to be scrap? Do you have a tracking method for WHY something was declared as scrap? Next, is this related to a specific product, or is it across all production lines? If we understand what caused the scrap, and what production is the source of the scrap, we can start investigating. What do the supervisors and production crews think are the source of the scrap? Even wilder - is one person's scrap another person's gold mine?
For noncomforming material - are we talking incoming material or outgoing material? Similar to the scrap questions, what caused the material to be noncomforming. Is it limited to a specific type of material, to a specific supplier? What is the process that creates non-comforming material?
Similar process for customer returns. Why? What? Who? is doing the returns.
Tougher is turning R&D projects into sales. Having dealt with laboratories, there is a certain risk there - we need to keep up R&D, BUT very few R&D lines will create a product. Many R&D products are happy accidents - super glue, sticky notes, Silly Putty. Are we limber enough to turn a "failure" in what we intended into an unintended success? Are we willing to celebrate audacious failures? What is the risk tolerance for R&D? On a more practical level - who are our partners out there and what are their roles and desires? What is the "next big thing" in our industry?
Reducing Scrap, reducing Non conforming material, increasing sales by reducing customer returns
Turning R&D projects into sales
So, perhaps these are business objectives. Moving on:
If we want to reduce scrap - we need to understand what is the process that makes scrap? Why is it we had to declare this "stuff" to be scrap? Do you have a tracking method for WHY something was declared as scrap? Next, is this related to a specific product, or is it across all production lines? If we understand what caused the scrap, and what production is the source of the scrap, we can start investigating. What do the supervisors and production crews think are the source of the scrap? Even wilder - is one person's scrap another person's gold mine?
For noncomforming material - are we talking incoming material or outgoing material? Similar to the scrap questions, what caused the material to be noncomforming. Is it limited to a specific type of material, to a specific supplier? What is the process that creates non-comforming material?
Similar process for customer returns. Why? What? Who? is doing the returns.
Tougher is turning R&D projects into sales. Having dealt with laboratories, there is a certain risk there - we need to keep up R&D, BUT very few R&D lines will create a product. Many R&D products are happy accidents - super glue, sticky notes, Silly Putty. Are we limber enough to turn a "failure" in what we intended into an unintended success? Are we willing to celebrate audacious failures? What is the risk tolerance for R&D? On a more practical level - who are our partners out there and what are their roles and desires? What is the "next big thing" in our industry?
It is an objective, just not a quality objective.
The OP asked about "Quality Objectives" in the title. Sales isn't and never was a Quality Objective. Anyone who has worked in a Sales function and been good at their job can explain to you why.
I am not a fan of putting up big dividing walls between Quality and the rest of the Business, similarly I am against walls between Safety and Business. Quality and Safety (and Environmental and Security and) tend then to take a back seat and not seen as contributors to the 'bottom line'. Much as I dislike Six Sigma, that was an important message the proponents of Six Sigma developed and led to its popularity.
Agreed, Mr Prevette. However, ISO 9001 and its cousins are about product quality - not running the business as a whole - and it specifically requires quality objectives. As a sales person I can increase sales in all kinds of ways. Yes, a quality outcome like happy customers helps with sales, but it's only part.
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