Improving the quality, the effectiveness and efficiency, of your organization’s processes while increasing the caliber of product or service has never been more important than it is today. Pressures from management, your competition, and low cost labor sources are squeezing the life out of many North American companies.

Problem solving at some companies simply does not exist, while some others believe that waste, scrap, and defects are just another cost of doing business. And they’re right! It is a cost… called Cost of Poor Quality! (COPQ). More on this later.

Your company can’t continue to throw money away. More and more organizations are realizing the bottom line effect of COPQ, and taking the necessary steps to enhance their performance by measuring cost of poor quality and understanding these costs to improve profitability.

Also, several problem solving structures are currently popular. Depending upon the complexity of a problem, your organization may choose to use any of the following methods:

• Simple problem solving, including the 5 Step Approach, PDSA or PDCA, the Divide and Conquer method, which breaks down a complex problem into several smaller issues, or 8D, popularized by the auto industry.

• Basic lean manufacturing concepts

• Six Sigma methodology

These toolsets can be applied regardless of the business you’re in- product, service, or information oriented.

Additionally, your company may be registered to some standard management system like ISO9001:2000 or ISO/TS16949. Many of the quality management system (QMS) standards are based upon ISO9001. They actually require companies to continually improve.

You can propel your QMS to the next level by using these standards to your benefit. These natural feedback loops within the standards…

• Management Review

•Internal Audits

• Corrective and Preventive Action

• Analyzing Data

• Customer Complaints

… will help your company reach higher levels of achievement, … continually striving to get better.

That's what quality-improvement-matters.com is all about... showing you tested, useful and easy to use methods for process improvement. Methods to enhance quality and reduce waste within your organization. A business geared to assist other organizations achieve their goals.