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QUALITY PLANNING
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QUALITY PLANNING: DEFINITIONS AND RELATIONSHIPS
The terminology relating to quality planning has not been standardised. In view of this we shall
define the key words and terms as we go along. Each of these definitions sets out what is meant by
a particular word or term as it is used in this book.
What Is Quality Management?
Quality management is the totality of ways through which we achieve quality. Quality management
includes all three processes of the quality trilogy: quality planning, quality control, and quality
improvement.
What Is Quality Planning?
Quality planning is the activity of (a) determining customer needs and (b) developing the products
and processes required to meet those needs.
In using this definition, note that quality planning is required for numerous products—not only the
goods and services that are sold to clients but also many internal products, such as purchase
orders, invoices, and reports. Quality planning is also required for numerous processes, many of
which are internal business processes—for example, recruitment of new employees, preparing
sales forecasts, and producing, invoices.
The Alligator Hatchery
There is an interrelation between quality planning and quality improvement. It is well described by
the plight of the fabled manager who was up to his waist in alligators. Under that analogy each live
alligator is a potential quality improvement project. Each completed improvement project is a dead
alligator.
THE DAMAGE DONE AND UPPER MANAGEMENT RELUCTANCE
The damage due to deficient quality planning has been, and is, considerable. An important part of
that damage is inadequate competitiveness in the market place, so that sales income is reduced.
Another important part of the damage is the resulting chronic cost of poor quality. About a third of
the work in the United States economy consists of redoing what was done previously.
Collectively, the damage done to sales and costs adds up to a problem of upper-management
magnitude. This damage should not go on, but it will go on so long as that malignant hatchery
remains in operation. Moreover, that hatchery has deep roots in the company. It has been running
for such a long time that nothing short of leadership by the managers can shut it down.
Why Use Experienced Amateurs?
We use experienced amateurs because we assign responsibility for planning mostly on a functional
basis. For example, the responsibility for the design of a purchase order (a product) and of a pur-
chasing procedure (a process) is typically assigned to the purchasing manager. That manager then
has the problem of planning for multiple parameters: technology, cost, schedule, and productivity,
as well as quality. Those assigned to do the planning are likely to be expert in the purchasing
function but seldom expert in how to plan for quality.
Use of Quality Professionals
In many manufacturing companies wide use has been made of quality planning by “quality
professionals”—that is, quality engineers and reliability engineers. In such companies the
organisational structure usually provides for these professionals to assist the line engineers and
managers, who retain the overall planning responsibility. However, this arrangement has its own
array of limitations, such as debates over jurisdiction and personality differences. The emerging
consensus is that the planners (the experienced amateurs) should themselves become proficient in
using the methods and tools of modern quality planning. This emerging consensus requires a
massive cultural change: a major revision of the thought and behaviour patterns of those
experienced amateurs. In turn, such a change requires extensive training in methods and tools as
well as the motivation to use them. Here again, leadership must come from the managers.
Use of Inspection and Checking
The deficiencies in quality planning have stimulated wide use of inspection and checking to detect
and correct errors. In one sense this concept has value. Undetected errors are much more costly to
remedy at later stages. However, this detection process does little to prevent the errors from
happening in the first place. In fact, inspection and check can easily become a way of life, and help
to perpetuate the deficiencies in quality planning. The method is competitive only if competitors do
the same thing.
Perceived Needs
With growing affluence, customers’ needs proliferate into areas that can be baffling to
technologists. Identical goods and services command radically different prices, depending on the
shops in which they are sold: budget, deluxe, or intermediate. Consumers can develop brand
loyalties and mind-sets to an extent that makes the facts academic. An example is the Stew
Leonard fish story.
Some customers refused to buy fish wrapped in transparent paper. To them wrapped fish was not
fresh fish; the only fresh fish was unwrapped fish on ice. Leonard then added a fish bar with ice in
it. The sale of wrapped fish did not decline, but total fish sales doubled.
Cultural Needs
Cultural needs abound. Among internal customers they relate to such needs as job security, self-
respect, respect of others, continuity of behaviour patterns, and still other elements of what are
broadly called cultural values. Although such needs are real, they are seldom stated openly.
Instead they are stated in disguised form. For example, a proposed new process threatens to
eliminate the need for some human expertise; the expertise will be built into the technology. The
present human experts will resist introduction of the new process. Their reasons will be on plausible
grounds—the effect on costs, on other customer needs, etc. The one reason they will not give is,
“This change will reduce my status.”