Should the Quality Department be independent of Operations

Jim Wynne

Staff member
Admin
#11
Having trouble figuring out what "claim" you disagree with. Being that I asked a question, seems very contrarion to disagree with it. If you have an opinion that's fine, I asked for them. Please quote the "claim" you're referring to.
Not speaking for kgott, but I think he meant the "claim" to be the idea that a quality department should be responsible for product quality, not a particular claim that you made.
 
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Wes Bucey

Quite Involved in Discussions
#12
Regular Cove readers may be familiar with my frequent rants against "Kwality Kops" (those Keystone Kop types who relish their power to say "gotcha" when they detect a nonconformance.)

Ideally, there is no "us versus them" rivalry in the workplace. All should be happy to work toward a common goal of a more efficient, profitable environment.

I have written previously that our Quality guys did not perform routine inspections - they designed the inspection protocol for each part and trained operators, interfaced with customers and suppliers, and acted as "court of last resort" when issues arose.

In my own operation, I took the police action out of the quality function and had a much happier workforce. The following post is an overview description of what we did. Perhaps you might glean some insight into helping your organization work in cooperation instead of conflict.
http://elsmar.com/Forums/showpost.php?p=507421&postcount=9

I went into more detail in this series of posts:
Wes Bucey on an efficient shop - empowerment (This is a single post (#18) in a longer thread - the url leads directly to the post - it is associated with a follow-up in post #20)
http://elsmar.com/Forums/showpost.php?p=105469&postcount=18
Wes Bucey on quoting and empowerment (This is a single post (#20) in a longer thread - the url leads directly to the post)
http://elsmar.com/Forums/showpost.php?p=105566&postcount=20

In process and final inspection:

Re: Inspection Dimensional Check Sheets - Over 500 part numbers

Who inspects?
I, too, ran a shop where primary responsibility...

Control Charts
In my high tech machining business (1990 -2000),...

What makes sense?
In point of fact, I have seen several operations...
 

PABSR

Inactive Registered Visitor
#13
I think there are many things to consider, specially those that are special and unique to your organization. Ideally, Quality should be independent, but at the same time the QMS should be able to adapt to a new structure and remain effective. The positive thing is that in a small company you can change and adapt to change faster that in big organizations. If the new structure doesn't work, the QMS should be able to provide an objective diagnose, and Top Management should be able to respond accordingly.
 
J

jenjen35

#14
I agree..Quality should be there to assist..They always seem to come into the role of telling them what to do and although this is ok in some instances because of the technical side of production/manufacturing, the culture of a company has to change in regards to who is telling who what to do. I have been on both sides of this and completely understand the roles of production and quality.
 

John Broomfield

Staff member
Super Moderator
#15
I work for a smallish steel coating facility. Recently the head of operations received a promotion that put him over my boss as well as the entire quality department. Before that we were an independent department reporting to the VP of manufacturing, who oversaw all the engineers, maintenance, operations, and quality. My question is this: Is having operations oversee the quality dept. create a sort of "conflict of interest"? Several areas where we can be prodded to make decisions that favor prime yield instead of customer satisfaction come to mind. Thanks for any feedback.
muohio,

Your desire for independent reporting to the CEO may come from you thinking the people responsible for production cannot be trusted to be responsible for quality.

Better to remove the conflict between yield and customer satisfaction. Surely yield includes only those products that conform to customer requirements? Including items that will be returned by customers in the measurement of yield makes no sense to me.

Make sure that everyone in the organization understands that the only way to reduce costs and increase yield is by managing quality. Short-term versus long-term thinking may be the problem here.

You cannot manage quality for them. Instead, become the champion of the CEO's organizational management system (process-based) that reinforces the required behaviors and helps everyone to get their work right the first time.

Then a wise CEO will invite you to be her or his trusted advisor.

John
 
K

kgott

#16
Having trouble figuring out what "claim" you disagree with. Being that I asked a question, seems very contrarion to disagree with it. If you have an opinion that's fine, I asked for them. Please quote the "claim" you're referring to.

Point taken, I could have done better.
 
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