Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs – November 2013

Welcome to November 2013 edition of Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs.

We have few good leads for Social Responsibilities vis-à-vis Quality.

Raj Sapru, Former Director, Advisory Services in  BSR Insight presents Sustainability: What’s Quality Got to Do With It? :  As the relative upstart to quality (which is three times older), CSR may follow a similar path, moving from executive mandate to corporate function to a set of integrated values. Some even argue that the success of CSR integration will be measured by a diminishing need for a corporate-level CSR or sustainability function—and there are many lessons from the path that quality has taken.

BSR’s recent report in partnership with the American Society of Quality, “CSR and Quality: A Powerful and Untapped Connection,” explores in more depth the connection between CSR
Building Socially Responsible Organizations:  ASQ’s social responsibility (SR) initiative, TheSRO, has a new website. If you haven’t checked it out yet, I strongly encourage you to do so. Here’s the link: www.thesro.org. It’s mission is to “increase the use and impact of quality to meet the diverse needs of the world.”
Increasingly, accountability and social responsibility are the expectation of consumers around the globe. To be socially responsible, people and organizations must behave ethically and with sensitivity toward social, cultural, economic, and environmental issues…….We believe that quality offers the tools to meet these emerging needs. TheSRO is a collaborative movement to integrate socially responsible practices into systematic approaches that meet the diverse needs of the world. To learn more about the connection between quality and SR, click here

As an organization, Business for Social Responsibility’s mission is to work with business to create a just and sustainable world. We envision a world in which everyone can lead a prosperous and dignified life within the boundaries of the Earth’s natural resources.
BSR ‘s Theory of Change believes that a just and sustainable world will result when the unique skills and resources of all sectors—business, civil society, and government—are aligned toward that goal. The role of business is to create and deliver products and services in a way that treats people fairly, meets individual’s needs and aspirations within the boundaries of our planet, and encourages market and policy frameworks that enable a sustainable future.

Lowell Centre for Sustainable Production  – By taking up the challenge of pursuing the long-term goal of Lowell Center projects and affiliates to redefine environmentalism and occupational health and safety while also demonstrating how these concepts are compatible with new systems of production and consumption that are healthy for workers, environmentally sound, economically viable, and socially accountable.

At this point, we take a sudden detour to more technical aspects of Quality.

October 2013 issue of IRCA’s magazine INform  brings Japan’s inside scoop on the new ISO 9001 standard and tests your standards knowledge in our exclusive quiz

In its technical section, Richard Green talks about the generic approach to transition training for future Management Systems Standards.

Whilst on the subject of enriching Internal Audit as a tool for Quality Improvement, in a regular column in  Quality Digest , GOTTFRIED GIRITZER    suggests Using Internal Audits as an Efficiency Improvement Tool to check for the efficiency of the System . Formal “Internal Auditor” trains co-auditors. For them it’s not necessary to have education and training as an internal auditor. It is only their duty to study all the relevant regulations of the management system that are valid for the department in question prior the internal audit.

51 Objects in ISO 9001 has identified 51 objects in ISO 9001,which should exist or be implemented in order to control customer satisfaction. 34 (66%) of these objects are processes/procedures. In a few cases quality dimensions of these objects are explicitly mentioned: commitment (5.1), customer focus (5.2) competence, awareness (6.2.2), traceability (7.5.3) and continuity (8.5.1). Some key words are: control (6), design and development (6), quality (3) and review (3).

The Most Common Mistakes with ISO 9001 to Avoid has re-visited the fundamental basis for pursuing the design and implementation of ISO 900 standards, so as to align the overall business strategy with the body of QMS within the organization.

APPLY THE PDCA CYCLE FOR CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT ON EPCI PROJECT has graphically explained application of continual improvement in project management set up.

Jørgen Winther@ The No Crisis Blog has put the PDCA in its right perspective – “a cultural habit – not a project , not something that can be done by force, but a way of working on every day basis” in How Long is “Continuous”? – On PDCA.

We once again take a turn to take on a macro view of Quality.

Greg Goodwin has posted 3 Questions to Answer When Shaping Your Quality Management Culture, because achieving a model of operational excellence  and optimizing the company’s key resources of people, processes, and technology requires the efforts of the entire organization.

The three questions are:
1.      Are you cultivating quality management leaders in your organization?
In order to best manage quality and foster an environment of innovation and continuous improvement, it’s important to provide a corporate framework while leaving room for some decisions that may be best left to local leaders.
     2.  What is the proper ratio of corporate versus local quality management?
The most effective approach is usually a “hybrid” between the two that focuses on standardizing only the processes that are essential to meeting the organization’s overall quality goals, allowing for continuous improvement and local control where they are deemed more effective.
    3. What is the role of technology in building a quality culture?
On top of the superior data collection and analysis capabilities enabled, having integrated solutions is an important way of improving communication and collaboration around quality.

Shaun Spearmon , an engagement leader at Kotter International loves  Lewis Carroll’s quote, “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.” In the article, Your Company Vision: If It’s Complicated, It Shouldn’t Be,  he amplifies that visions are intended to clarify the pathway forward. When effective, the vision statement has an illuminating quality that allows organizations to move fast and with great precision. Simply stated:  It’s NOT complicated.

Kurt J. Harden@ Cultural Offering – They don’t care about you  touches upon one of toughest lessons to teach new employees, in the workforce, is a simple guiding service principle:  They don’t care about you.

It isn’t a sad commentary on society; it is commerce.  It is basic psychology and can be incredibly liberating.  Armed with this understanding and acting on it, your problems may actually lessen, your load may even lighten as you serve others with greater focus. ……Learn the lesson and you are on your way to success.

Caroline Ceniza-Levine , on Forbes  – has quoted Albert Einstein – Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts. – in  What Is The Better Metric: Feelings Or Numbers?.  And then builds up: Einstein has it exactly right. There is no one suitable metric for everything. You have to run the numbers and understand your data. But not everything can be boiled down to numbers, nor should it.
Ideas for World Quality Month 2013 : November is the Fourth Annual World Quality Month, a celebration of quality, its impact on the world, and quality practitioners whose knowledge, experience, and passion make improved quality available for anyone who asks. You can learn more about the event on www.worldqualitymonth.org.

Eyesore 9001 & Other Humor Documents – Face it, Quality is a tough profession, and sometimes you need a break from the stress. This is where Oxebridge’s free humour documents come in.
EYESORE 9001 was first published in 2004, and has since been downloaded over 250,000 times. It’s a hilarious and biting look at not only the ISO 9001 standard, but the machine behind the creation of such standards. Updated for ISO 9001:2008, you can still download it for free below.

DUMBAS9100 takes on the aviation, space and defence industries, with this parody of the aerospace standard AS9100. For mature readers only (some adult language), you can download it here.

We begin our usual round of ASQ Videos with 2013 World Quality Month, supplemented with Videos with keyword “World Quality Month”

ASQ TV Episode 10: Teamwork: Learn what makes a team work successfully to accomplish goals and deliver results.

Our ASQ’s Influential Voices this month is Daniel John Zrymiak.

“Daniel John Zrymiak is from Surrey, British Columbia, Canada. He has worked in quality for two decades, mostly recently at Accenture as a Mobilization Lead. Daniel is active in ASQ as a Quality Press author and reviewer, member leader, and Technical Committee chair (Finance and Governance – Quality Management Division). He blogs at AQualitEvolution.

“With respect to Quality, I have as many questions as answers, and through the exchange I hope to create a community of like-minded people to help advance our profession in order to achieve and sustain relevance and positive breakthroughs as we pursue and realize our ideals.””

“A QualitEvolution is intended to capture positions and experiences as a participant in the evolution of the Quality profession into the 21st century. From its origins as the brainchild of Corporate Industrial Statisticians, our profession has transformed and evolved to incorporate and adapt to the demands and expectations of our modern existence.

The scope of the subject matter within A QualitEvolution extends to the furthest ranges of quality, business transformation, management science, and all that jazz ..”

And we finally round up our present edition with- John Hunter’s Management Improvement Carnival # 201.

There cannot be iota of doubt that what we cover in each episode here may not be totally representative of what was written on Quality. It is also not all that I came across to read. It is only what I found to be interesting in so far as tour main topic – QUALITY – is concerned. Hence, it also can be taken as an accepted fact that your constructive inputs would go a l..o..n..g way to enrich the content on this carnival………