Empower Your Business with CRM Opportunity Management for Quality Assurance

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what does the quality Department do and is there a difference between quality assurance and quality control probably hello I'm Dom welcome to my channel where we talk about continuous Improvement in an industrial setting and today's video it's about the role of quality and quality assurance quality control within the operation and also after that we'll be going into and how does that link up to continuous Improvement now first off the quality Department it is a hugely important department in your operations but quality is not limited to them you know especially as Improvement professionals that quality is everyone's business that is one of the main things you need to be producing giving a qualitative product to your customers is the basis for Success if you want to keep those customers if you want to keep your markets if you want to keep making profits in the future so what do they actually do now there is indeed this difference between quality assurance and quality control both really focus on that in the end you get a good quality product out of the door and for that and it will do quality checks right so we control or we check our product we'll also check the input so we check this how good is the burger that we make in the end we're also going to check are the the buttons that were supplied are they good is the meat fresh and does it have the correct quality parameters now things like microbial contamination or taste or how fresh is it for a salad you know how hard is it does it break is that the correct color all kinds of things like that we've defined beforehand and we're now checking but hey that definition so we also have material specifications and how do we get in and out so there are specifications of how should our hamburger look in the end how should it taste in the end but also to do these checks on the incoming materials we've got specifications of the incoming materials or even the service levels of suppliers and this of course we will check from time to time so we'll go out to those suppliers and we'll order their Factory or we'll follow up you know how the incoming quality checks have been over the last months the last year what do we see do we need to work with them can we improve something there so that really is part of managing your inputs in general and then also you have that what are we delivering in between of course so we've also got our own Factory so we need to have processes and people that can really do what we need foreign so that's also going into the process we need to know how hot do we have to make the burger how long how much of lettuce is going to be added on top how is the way that we're going to pack everything do we need to pack it with gas or are we in a restaurant are we just going to serve it can our operators and logistic people and our managers and our quality control people can they actually do all of that and that makes basically that that part but so the whole thing here makes a quality management system and a quality management system encompasses all of that and the one you have heard about definitely is ISO the other quality management and quality certifications they differ a bit for industry and per market so you've got your your net Gap or here in Europe you in food you have ifs and BRC are very big ones but ISO 9000 and 9001 those are the two that sort of underlie most of what any industry wants to do when they are managing quality and in that you've got a whole bunch of rules basically but a whole bunch of systems that you want to have in place where you also check what is going out check your suppliers discuss where you have problems improve on that so it's a whole system and that whole system of how you put that into place that is the role of quality assurance doing the actual checks that is quality control now you already feel that there's some overlap right so checking A supplier quality assurance quality control usually it's logged in with quality assurance but basically I'd say don't put too much effort into that distinction but this is what within the operation is meant with quality assurance and quality control setting up and really guiding the whole system of how do we produce qualitative products and the control is really about making sure that we're following those process steps correctly probably got a number of critical control points in food definitely a thing but in the middle of the process we'll be measuring you know is the temperature of our heater really correct say quality control we were not checking the meat we were not checking the final product not the burger and we were checking a process parameter all in the quality management system and part of our quality control is also to do such checks now what you will see in the whole quality sphere is that you also really have to think about your process really really think about you know what could go wrong so basically you do sort of a failure mode and effect analysis right FMEA and you put Quality Management Systems in place and you have kpis and it this when you come to think of it the what is typically the quality department and your quality management system doesn't it feel tremendously like lean DPM even more actually called productive maintenance things that Six Sigma do it is basically continuous Improvement isn't it it's exactly the same things we're trying to do when we're working on continuous Improvement or when we're working on our quality management system and yet in most companies the quality department and the performs Excellence or lean or continuous Improvement department they are separate they're trying to do the same thing so now of course you already feel it coming the role of QA and QC in continuous Improvement it should be huge that generally QA is not too involved in let's say the real lean Journey so getting flow through the process but then they are quite often and I don't mean this in a negative way but quite often slowing down those changes because they will be the conscience of your organization reminding you if we are going to make those changes we're gonna make everything nice and clean and quick and fast we still need to do these checks we we still have to stay within specifications we still need the room to do things in the correct way let's not just reduce the burger frying time because it is also a quality step it is an important step to safeguard our consumers things like that so even in those places where they are not really directly involved because you're not fully aligned on let's say the goal of better quality management the quality people especially quality assurance they are very much involved there as well if you are going to do anything in the warehouse where your ingredients are going to be put in different places and you're going to change the the system of how you register and manage where everything is placed and how things are placed next to each other if you are working in food or Pharma but I think actually in any industry and you're gonna put things next to each other that might be allergens or that might easily be misplaced or you know swapped around your quality team hopefully is gonna really have a discussion with you maybe not a fight a discussion with you because you are potentially damaging your whole process your way of ensuring assuring quality assurance that you get a good product out of the door so what does that mean for your improvement teams and your problem solving teams and how you set up your training system and how you run your continuous Improvement program in general get the quality people in both quality assurance and quality control although I will say quality control people are generally because they're really working on the checks and the checks they really know your product best after the operator get them involved in any problem solving and in many process Improvement things because they really know the system of how you work with your processes but the quality assurance people they should have such a pivotal role in your continuous Improvement program now in many organizations they are already overloaded with work because we keep adding on external Audits and new things we want our quality management system to do and it's it I mean in the end it is a non-value added cost if you look at it in a very waste way of thinking anything you do in the quality department is not directly producing a good product so we also tend to keep the quality departments as small as possible or as many people in the offices would say maybe a bit too small even to do what they really should be doing so there's stress on their availability on their workload in many companies get them involved because continuous Improvement and quality management it is almost the same thing that means you are natural allies and the continuous Improvement team should be serving the quality department and the quality management system and also don't forget that when we are making improvements or solving problems and because of that I have encounter measures that will change our standards all of that standards processes how we do things what are our parameters it is all part of the quality management system that is generally managed by the quality department at least 30 and owner so it's everywhere right QA and QC they make natural allies to The Continuous Improvement team you really need to get them on board now if you are a quality professional the other thing is also the continuous Improvement theme is a wonderful place to also expand your experience think of doing let's say a one or maybe two year temporary role within the CI team as a way to broaden your experience and to really be able to improve that quality management system give your experience do what lean and DPM and continuous Improvement are doing for your organization learn from it as well and then you know you can go back to quality work with new experiences or maybe you'll like it and you'll grow more in this lean and Six Sigma way of thinking but however you do that as an organization also as a quality professional think about really getting people from the quality Department with a quality background into your continuous Improvement efforts now if you want to know a bit more about you know specifically the quality parts that are within continuous Improvement go check out my video on the quality pillar and also if you go through my videos You'll see so many things that as a quality professional you'll think that that is my work and that was of course the whole message of this video if you liked it don't forget to hit that like button subscribe I mean I've got videos coming out at least every week hopefully twice a week and for now I wish you the best of luck improving your quality management system and as always don't forget to enjoy the continuous Improvement Journey