Quality Tools Can Be Real-Life Buddies

Paul's recent blog post has excited me as it looks at Quality Tools as something practically useful to the mankind.  He asks fellow ASQ bloggers to write about their experiences where a quality tool has been used in non-work situations.  I here share some of my experiences.

I know of a friend who is so passionate about quality where he implemented the '5S' quality tool in his home.  Objects inside the home were neatly arranged and directions to access them clearly marked. Due to this, even a stranger can locate things quickly and easily.  For example, when I am at his home, I can locate his car keys without seeking anybody's assistance.  I could find a similar initiative in YouTube that I suggest you to watch. 

Why-Why-Why analysis (or the 5-Why analysis) has proved to be an effective tool that I use with my children to find out the root causes of a particular outcome - success or failure.  For example, my child did not score good marks, say, in Physics.  Look at a typical 5-Why analysis session below:

Me: Why did you score less marks in Physics?
Child: The questions were tough.

Me: Why were the questions tough?
Child: I had skipped reading 2 chapters from where most questions came for the exam.

Me: Why did you skip reading of 2 chapters?
Child:  I did not understand the topics. I had missed 2 classroom sessions as I fell sick due to flu.

Me: Why did you not ask me for help? 
Child: You were always busy, dad to find time to teach me! ....

Today, my credit card online statement provides me histogram, Pareto chart or pie chart views of my spending.   Here I am able to analyze my financial spending in a systematic way.

Quality tools are very handy for work as well as non-work situations.   Sometimes, we use them even without completely realizing the fact that they are quality tools!

How to deliver high quality consistently for years? - Quality @ Tata Group

Per Assocham survey, the Tata Group and its companies is perceived to be India's best-known global brand within and outside the country.  Tata products are perceived as best, reliable and value-for-money in the salt to software segments.

How Tata companies are able to provide world-class, high quality and reliable products and services for so many years?   

While there are many reasons for their repeated success, over the last several decades, I would like to highlight about the Tata Business Excellence Model (TBEM) that really helps Tata companies measure and deliver quality at all levels.

TBEM is a philosophy adopted from the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige Model.  For Tata companies, TBEM is about quality of management.  This model addresses  practices related to leadership, strategy, customers, knowledge management, human resources, core processes and results.  

I invite you to visit the Business Excellence site of Tata and learn further about their commitment towards quality.   You will also be fascinated to read about the Tata Quality Management Services (TQMS) and the JRD QV award.

Failure - The Stepping Stone to Success

During my childhood days, my parents and teachers taught me that 'Failure is the stepping stone to success'.  Now, after several years, Paul through his blog post has reminded me again to look and comment on failures.

There is nothing wrong in failing as long as you have the courage to come back and succeed.    You will be excited to read about the failure stories of Steve Jobs at Apple and how that helped him achieve the highest success possible.  Apple is now the most profitable company amongst the US corporations.

For a quality professional, life is a continuously improving journey - be it personal or professional. They preach and practice to learn from their own and others failures.  These lessons learned are incorporated back into the organizational processes to prevent failures and, in turn, assure quality.  The key is to ensure that the same failure is not repeated.  Many a times, failures remind us about the need for continuous improvement.

All those who succeeded would have taken risks in one form or the other.  Most times, rewards and risks are positively correlated - higher the risk, higher the reward!  It is seen that innovators take higher risks.  Steve Jobs, one of the best innovators the world has ever seen, said "Be curious, experiment and take risks".  He trusted his own judgment, perfectionism and gut to take the right decisions.