Workshop Ten - Quality Management
- Important Considerations
- Providing quality is the very best kind of marketing!
- Small firms must provide quality in order to survive.
- Quality provides a safety net.
- Total Quality Management relates to the "total product".
- Quality is about methods, controls, and people.
- Customer Focus
- Customer satisfaction is "goal #1".
- Be careful to read customer expectations accurately.
- "Share my sense of urgency"; BE GENUINE!
- Organizational Culture
- Starts at the top of the organization, by example and enforcement.
- Benchmarking: studying products and practices of other firms.
- Be careful of mediocrity!
- Tools and Techniques
- Training, checking, and measuring.
- Comprehensive employee training; must be experts!
- Adequate Resources: space, equipment, support.
- Checks and Balances: checklists, forms, regular reviews.
- Knowledge: management reporting (not just for managers).
- Quality Circle: a group of employees who meet to discuss quality.
- Must encourage customer feedback.
- Conclusions
- Maintaining quality is a tough job!
- Comprehensiveness, consistency, and competiveness.
- Quality doesn't just happen.