It’s a rare company that doesn’t want to implement a better quality system, resulting in performance excellence for their company, employees, customers and stockholders. However, the pursuit of quality is easier said than done.

If you ever get a chance to watch an aircraft being built, take it. Walking through the aircraft hangar at Northrop Grumman’s Palmdale, CA, facility, you will see two unmanned aircraft, each with a 130-foot wingspan, parked behind yellow tape. The scale of the aircraft and the desert setting make it feel like a movie set.

Undoubtedly, you have heard—perhaps spoke—the first two statements. You are in the business of process improvement, after all. You want to be sure you have an effective quality management system (QMS). 

If you subscribe to Quality, it seems safe to assume that quality is a priority for you. But even when it is a priority, achieving high levels of quality is an ongoing challenge that requires effort from every member of the organization every day.

The issue of implementing a lasting, meaningful quality transition is so important that I wanted to continue this discussion from last month.

Manufacturers focus on reducing their operating costs, but cannot afford buying more productive machinery.

Quality doesn’t just happen. It doesn’t come as a result of just the corner office, but of countless people in the organization. Achievement of a robust quality culture is an outcome of the combined efforts of the minds and hearts of everyone working together toward a common cause.

They are two distinct phrases with two different meanings. But does your organization treat them that way?

Certainly, quality professionals play an important role in their organization’s pursuit of improvement and customer satisfaction. However, managers must ‘walk the talk’ in pursuit of customer satisfaction.

Much of society has been taught to believe that failure is negative and results in the loss of much effort and resources. This is only true if we allow this thinking to become reality.