Tag: Trend Analysis

Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs – Volume XI – January 2023 Edition

Welcome to January 2023 edition of the XIth volume of Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs.

The theme for the XIth volume of our Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs is The Defining Trends of Quality Management – An Analytical Survey.

The aim for the present episode to overview the major trends already identified in the first two years of the present decade that are expected to shape the working philosophy for the quality management professionals. We shall look at some of the critical trends in a little more details in the subsequent months.

In order to identify the first step is carry out the trend analysis.

The trend analysis can be carried out from either the perspective of past data or from the potential changes that can take place in the future.

The real, lasting, and positive change to happen from implementation of CAPA[1] (from the past trends) or from the actions emending out of strategic planning – based on appropriate risj management approach -may require rethinking on the organization’s approach to trend analysis w. r. t. the quality management philosophy. These three questions provide a good beginning before taking up new trend analysis areas or tools/ modifying the existing ones.

  • What is the primary objective of the trend analysis? – One fundamental guiding principle is that a meaningful trend analysis should identify, evaluate and eliminate or prevent the issue that is having negative effect on product quality or customer expectations or to enable the organization to maintain / improve / sustain its competitive edge in the future.
  • What method to choose? – Primarily this driven by the basic purpose of the trend analysis exercise.
  • Is the data being analysed timely and adequate? – The timeliness of the data would mean that data neither should be outdated or should be irrelevant for the purpose and period of the trend analysis.

We now try to enlist major trends as identified in the presently documented literature:

    1. Changes in quality perceptions and approaches in terms of product and system quality as well as customer expectations.
    2. Evolving of management of risks under constantly changing business practices
    3. Knowledge sharing within and across the departments as well with outside stakeholders.
    4. Increasing significance of decision intelligence
    5. Improving the quality and reliability of the supply chain.
    6. Defining quality standards and related job roles in view of increasing need for seamless blending of technical and cross-functional skills.
    7. Increasing significance of integration of QEHS
    8. Increased importance of quality management approach with enterprise-level strategic planning

Apart from these generic issues, there are industry-sector specific trends analyses that can also help bring more generic issues under the radar.

The subject of trends analyses for very specific areas like  quality /environment /occupational and health and safety standards, geo-political-economical-social micro level and macro-level realignments, business performance measurement practices, micro- and macro-level racial and cultural changes etc.

There would be more trends identified in areas of Sustainability, Social relevance and Business continuity or Use of Quality 4.0 technology vis-à-vis Industry 4.0 technologies and IT technologies and the like.

Some of the Sources used as references:

We will now turn to our regular section -.

We now watch ASQ TV episode on –

We have taken up one article from Jim L. Smith’s Jim’s Gems:

  • Motives Are Important in Everything We Do – The success of our endeavors depends not so much on the endeavors themselves but, rather, on our motive for doing them. …. The key to success of The greatest writers, the greatest quality professionals, the greatest companies – the greatest men and women in all walks of life –is to be found in the fact they were motivated more, at least in the beginning, by what was important to them, what society needed, or by what they felt they had to do, rather than the thought of profit. This is the actual secret – the key to success… True success comes from working on things we really care about.

From the Editor’ (of Quality Magazine) – by Darryl Sealand, we have –

  • Knowledge is Power – From Sun Tzu to Chuck McGill – Why do we remember the past, and not the future? It is a perplexing question with no tangible, concrete answer. The question stems from, or at least often follows, Albert Einstein’s famous utterance, “Time is an illusion, although a stubbornly persistent one.”  …. We can even go as far as to replace the notion of memory with that of knowledge. Knowledge, after all, is facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education, i.e. the memories of that experience and education. So now the question becomes, “What if we had knowledge of the future?” … No matter your answer, the question points to the accuracy of an old, but particularly apt adage—Knowledge is power! ….As Sun Tzu states in the Art of War: “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.” … In the real world and on the “battlefields” of good business, particularly regarding the field of quality, knowledge lies in training. As contributing editor Genevieve Diesing writes, “As the pandemic and advances in technology impact the field, education and training remain paramount — especially for newcomers.”

I look forward to your views / comments / inputs to further enrich the theme of The Defining Trends of Quality Management – An Analytical Survey.

Note: The images or video clips depicted here above are through courtesy of respective websites who have the copyrights for the respective images /videos.

[1] Management of an Effective CAPA