Evolution of Traditional Quality

Cloud is the one of the prominent buzzwords in today's fast moving world.  Using cloud computing, companies are trying to optimize the Information Technology (IT) resources they use and make attempts move away from cost centers.  During the past decade, the IT world has seen leaps and bounds of changes and improvements.

Manufacturing is no exception.  Similar to Cloud in IT, Smart manufacturing may be the future for tomorrow's successful manufacturing companies.  This is what Paul took as the base theme for this month's discussion.  While 'traditional' stuff is changing so much, how is the quality function evolving accordingly?  This is the topic for our discussion.

Quality is an inevitable component for any product or service.  Quality function has evolved along to support the changes in technology, processes and other business functions.  Traditionally, Quality Control lost its prominence to Quality Assurance.  In the modern world, Quality Assurance has been taken over by Customer Delight.  Quality practitioners of today's world strive to deliver the "Delight" and the "WoW" factor.   The Apple (iPhone, iPad, iPod etc) and the Samsung (Note, Note2, SII, SIII etc) of the world is delivering delight through their best of the class innovative products.   Their Quality function is responsible for studying the relevant customer preferences, bring in necessary differentiators, and hence deliver the right products and services which, in turn, delights customers. 

So, over the years, Quality has changed.  That does not mean that we can undermine the importance of traditional quality function.  Quality fundamentals need to be strong and repeatable for any successful company.  Those which fail to understand the basics of quality fail miserably in business.  The Nokia and Motorola of today's world are behind their competition - Samsung and Apple in sales of mobile devices.  Microsoft also seems to be struggling to meet the consistent growth delivered by Apple and the Google. Quality function will widen further to embrace the innovation, smart, delight and the wow factor requirements of tomorrow's world.