Readability/Usability/Quality 1-98 (March 1998) by Gabriele Bock Germany

Quality Systems (QS) have become essential for (inter-)national competition. Companies spend large amounts of money for "measuring" quality defined by national and international standards. Quality, however, is a value, and like creeds and ideologies values cannot be measured with scientific exactness and are difficult to control. Total Quality Management (TQM) and other standardized concepts take that idealistic dimension into account. Certification according to ISO 9000, for instance, covers only about 50% of a TQM implementation. (Hagmaier: 53)

Detailed instructions and precise procedures associated with Quality Systems further the notion of objectivity. Companies proudly present their sophisticated tools for quality assurance. They neglect the fact that consumers do not care whether quality has been accomplished in a traditional intuitive way by a talented and well trained production team, or by expensive and time consuming quality management tools.

 

QS made in Germany

Probably in no other country is Total Quality Management taken as seriously as it is in Germany. Instead of adapting the TQM requirements to the specific needs of a company, and interpreting them in a commercially sensible way, as the concept suggests, many German companies try to reach the acme of perfection for Quality Systems. Managers as well as staff members at all levels are occupied establishing

• how work is reviewed, approved, identified, traced, controlled, inspected, tested, handled, stored, and delivered." (Fisher: 484)

Instead of writing about exchanging ideas with staff members and encouraging them to carry on producing high quality products, they should just go ahead and do it. Informal talks, customary in most companies in former decades, are much more likely to improve quality than writing, presenting, and revising reports.

The TQM concept, however, really offers more freedom than German thoroughness is sometimes willing to accept. Companies are free to decide how they want to meet the requirements and which work activities would be appropriate considering their specific economic situation. It is useful to write down a company's quality policy as a guideline for management decisions, or to agree on quality factors and procedures to evaluate customer satisfaction. But these activities should not take up too much time and effort. The expenditure of increasing product quality and controlling quality must be kept reasonable.

 

Award Quality, not Quality Systems

As mentioned in my previous articles, quality is a very complex subject. Most aspects of technical performance are checked by internal tests which are easy to implement and control. However, consumer-based quality, the determining factor for economic success or failure, cannot be operated under the same conditions.

Everybody agrees on nicely worded quality policy statements, such as "customer satisfaction is our main objective". But goals of that kind cannot be achieved by implementing internal tests and making each and every staff member responsible for producing quality without allocating means for their training in customer-oriented production. If a company has not identified its customers’ needs, it is hardly possible to produce high-quality products that will satify those needs. (And do not believe that marketing has the answer!)

The only way to produce-consumer based quality is to get consumers involved in the development of a product and to establish after-sales feedback procedures. I will elaborate on a few consumer relevant quality assurance methods in the next issue of TC Forum. Although these methods serve the purpose of improving quality - and even suit the TQM concept - they are far from being adequately represented in most existing Quality Systems. As long as awards are given to the best Quality Systems and not to the best products, "customer care" are shallow words.

References

Fisher, Barry: "Documenting an ISO 9000 Quality System" in Technical Communication, Third Quarter 1995, pp. 482-491

Hagmaier, Kai: "Qualitätssicherung durch TQM" in tekom-Nachrichten 3/95, pp. 52-53  

"transline Deutschland - Übersetzungsdienst für technische Übersetzung"