Internal Quality Assessment/Questionnaire

[skdiamond]

I?m trying to assess what our employees feel about our quality and get feedback from them on areas in which our quality is weak. I have a parallel project to understand what our customers think but in this post I?m trying to assess/get feedback from our employees. My thought was to interview a number of people in a range of different positions and get their input. However I?d like to provide a little structure to the interview process. I?m trying to come up with a standard set of question. So far I?ve come up with the list below. Any thoughts on other questions I should ask?

Thank you, Scott


Numeric Value Questions
Your perception of our quality (1-10 scale)
Your perception of our quality compared to competitors (1-10)
Engineering Development/Quality balance. A -5 to +5 scale of more time on quality and less on development or reverse.

Open Essay Questions
Products with quality issues
Areas of quality concern
Customers with significant quality complaints
Any other input you have

 

[Michael_M]

Are you certified in any particular standard (ISO 9001, AS9100, etc)?

You may want to make your questions a bit more specific,

Your perception of our quality (1-10 scale)

Maybe "Your perception of the quality of our product we sell"

and/or

"Your perception of the quality system we have internally to remove discrepant parts before they get to the customer"?

 

[skdiamond]

Thanks for the response. My intent was "Your perception of the quality of our product we sell" but I agree I should have clarified. Good input.

 

[AndyN]

Scott - one thing you might also want to consider is what you're going to do with this information (you haven't shared that with us). There is no faster way of turning people off than to ask them what they think and then to ignore them! You might - if you haven't - tell everyone the whole plan, not just the data gathering, to take this information, combined with customer feedback, into some form of actions. Of course, the same is true for the customers you survey...

 

[skdiamond]

Good point. My intent is to asses areas of quality strength and weakness and then (a) present to management (b) align quality resources so that we are helping the areas which need the most help.

I'll add some explanation to my questionnaire.

 

[ssz102]

i think you should come up with the goals or expects levels you wanted
then go along with this goals or expects or requirements, let interviewers say their ideas and what 's aspects need to be improvement

 

[RoxaneB]

Does everyone manufacture your final product? What if their primary customer - or supplier - is internal (i.e., someone down the line)? Is that something to consider in terms of your questions?

"Perception of quality" is too big a scope in my mind. Maybe some individual questions for specific aspects would be helpful to keep people focused in their answers:

• Price
• Value
• Service
• Quality of the actual product

Other than the Quality/Engineering reference, my perception is that the questions are geared more towards external influences. What about questions regarding Leadership providing the tools to help people do their jobs?

• Equipment
• Training
• Processes
• Information

I guess my first instinct when I read your questions was that you're going to end up with more questions after the survey than with answers. I'd suggest specific questions - if you want specific answers - and questions that require the organization to look in the mirror.

 

[kgott]

I?m trying to assess what our employees feel about our quality and get feedback from them on areas in which our quality is weak. I have a parallel project to understand what our customers think but in this post I?m trying to assess/get feedback from our employees. My thought was to interview a number of people in a range of different positions and get their input. However I?d like to provide a little structure to the interview process. I?m trying to come up with a standard set of question. So far I?ve come up with the list below. Any thoughts on other questions I should ask?

Thank you, Scott


Numeric Value Questions
Your perception of our quality (1-10 scale)
Your perception of our quality compared to competitors (1-10)
Engineering Development/Quality balance. A -5 to +5 scale of more time on quality and less on development or reverse.

Open Essay Questions
Products with quality issues
Areas of quality concern
Customers with significant quality complaints
Any other input you have

Scott; when you run this did you provide a definition of quality or did you leave it up to them to use their own ideas about what quality is? While there are many, and very good, definitions of quality, there is only one definitive definition which is that found in ISO 9001: 2006 which is the

"Degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfils requirements."

Unitl you define what you mean by quality in your climate surveys its results will always be a little suspect.

 

[skdiamond]

Hi Kgott,

Thank you for replying to my question. To answer yours, I haven't asked my set of questions yet. My desire is to get input from this group for additional questions before asking.

I would argue that my question is a little more general/open than the advice I'm getting. For one thing I'm interested in quality & reliability. I'm also going to ask this question from a diverse group of people: product managers, general managers, sales team, production people, etc. I agree with your definiton of quality but I guess I don't think provide that definition would necessarily help the feedback.