What are the common barriers and challenges to fostering a quality culture and how do you overcome them?

In my experience, I can tell you that any change in manufacturing culture, including Quality, comes from Top to Bottom. Leaders must be convinced that the change is absolutely necessary. If they transmit that, it will be easier to change other floors within the organization. First step to move ahead is to convince top managers. This is a lot more complicate that the bottom. We need to demonstrate them that the change will become beneficial for the company, financially talking.

When leadership doesn't take the time, or worse, doesn't want to take the time, to understand the standards to which they have committed, every day is an uphill challenge. In these cases, not only do quality staff alone shoulder the responsibility of maintaining the QMS; they bear the additional burden of constantly trying to convince their own leadership to do what they've agreed to through ISO standards, customer agreements, and the like. It is the resistance to basic quality concepts themselves, rather than the actual development, execution, and maintenance of programs and systems, that ultimately confuses and confounds the trajectory of the strategic vision.

At lot of what people are saying, I wholeheartedly agree with. I see the biggest challenge being senior leadership not understanding what the benefits of a quality culture are. This can be reduced waste, better planning, improved morale, etc. Quality culture can then easily become a half hearted process which can be doomed to failure. I have been in awe of well implemented and imbedded quality culture and I can only aspire to do as best as I can to try and achieve or influence a culture where everyone, senior or junior, feels empowered and motivated to do what is right, all the time, every time. This requires continued investment from the business. Failure to maintain required infrastructure can quickly lead to disillusionment.

Once you have top leaders engaged (half the battle) and have them aligned with the value proposition, everyone (CEO to line associates) needs to have objectives related to quality. Accountability is the other half of the battle! Quality is everybody’s business.

I couldn’t agree more. If there is a lack of leadership or no leadership, the organization will not progress in a sustainable way. A strong and focused leader will ensure the entire team understands that their contributions count towards the bottom line and cannot be accomplished without them. They will know it and feel it.

In any situation where change is forthcoming, one of the ways to ease this transition is "Finding the Why" - spoken about by Simon Sinek. For change to be accepted, the reasons why must be clear at macro and micro level. This begins to break down changes from "something that is happening to me" to "We need to do this to achieve 'X'"

These are solid, fact-based observations, but there are three critical pieces that need to be ingrained into the foundation of a successful and sustainable quality culture… SAFETY TRUST CONSISTENCY If any one of those is absent, you already have cracks in your foundation.

Der menschliche Widerstand gegen Ver?nderungen ist ein natürliches Ph?nomen, das in der Dynamik von Qualit?tskulturinitiativen oft untersch?tzt wird. Um diesen Widerstand zu überwinden, ist es von gr??ter Bedeutung, die betroffenen Gruppen nicht nur zu informieren, sondern sie aktiv in den Ver?nderungsprozess einzubeziehen. Workshops und offene Dialogforen, in denen Mitarbeiter, Kunden und Lieferanten ihre Bedenken ?u?ern und Vorschl?ge einbringen k?nnen, schaffen eine Basis für Verst?ndnis und Akzeptanz. Indem Sie den Stakeholdern zeigen, dass ihr Input wertgesch?tzt wird und direkten Einfluss auf die Gestaltung der Ver?nderungsprozesse hat, f?rdern Sie eine Kultur der Mitwirkung und des Engagements.

Always it will be a resistance to any change. My experience indicates that the change must have in mind all potential skills from our people. We need to use their abilities, not just change them. We need to 'translate' the change to their own manufacturing language.

Through my observations, it appears that certain managers demonstrate resistance to change, opting to maintain familiarity within their established comfort zones. This tendency tends to emerge when a system or process becomes the norm, and there is a lack of proactive efforts to enhance operational efficiency, leading to a repetitive cycle each year. Managers often attribute this stagnation to a perceived shortage of resources or a workforce they consider less competent, emphasizing their reluctance to pursue further advancements. It is essential to highlight that managers not only respond to change but also wield a significant influence in shaping the company's culture.

In my experience, a quality culture and a Lean culture go hand in hand. Lean, and therefore quality, is everyone’s responsibility. Lean thinking becomes a frame of mind that impacts every action and every decision made by everyone in the company, as you simplify processes and eliminate waste. Lean employees have a continuous-improvement mindset. No matter how good the process, it can always be made better. Problems can not only be solved, they can also be prevented. This requires support from the top and training at all levels throughout the organization. Lean, and quality, then become a cornerstone of the way you conduct daily business throughout your company. The corporate culture becomes one of “that’s just the way we do things here.”

Die Optimierung von Systemen und Prozessen ist für das Qualit?tsmanagement unerl?sslich. Die Implementierung von Lean-Management-Prinzipien und kontinuierlichen Verbesserungsprozessen (KVP) kann hierbei von gro?em Nutzen sein. Durch regelm??ige Prozessaudits und Feedback-Schleifen lassen sich Schwachstellen identifizieren und Verbesserungen gezielt vornehmen. Die Digitalisierung von Prozessen und der Einsatz moderner Technologien wie KI-basierte Analysetools k?nnen darüber hinaus die Effizienz steigern und eine datengestützte Entscheidungsfindung unterstützen.

Common barriers _ Few cases still following old process. Need to be updated and reviewed frequently and should align with current technology/ scope - SOP's and policies are not easy to understand to layman. Need simplified training material and it needs to interactive. Current some are read and sign - Not all possible scenarios can be covered in process and one shape doesn't fit for all and hence sometimes we need to be pragmatic to understand the current problem and what risk we have if not following the process and how can we handle them if occurs though risk management

The basic’s on any project are safety, quality, cost and schedule. On any project, safety should be the number one priority. We all want to go home safely at the end of the day in one piece. Unfortunately, when things get tight on any project, cost and schedule always go to the forefront leaving Quality a distant fourth! Not only is this a major problem in producing a quality product, it also lends itself to additional safety exposures. A Quality process is successful if a project is completed safely, with a happy customer, on time, and within budget. A product that you would be willing to sign your name to. As Quality professionals we need to develop and continually improve our quality processes and procedures to reach that goal.

The employees need the question "What's in it for me?" answered by Top Management for them. They need to evidence the management "walk the talk" and management need to determine how they do this. When framed correctly a challenging question for leadership. Getting employee engagement in setting up of processes or reviewing/revising them and providing feedback on their inputs goes a long way to building the right culture. As also focusing on the system issues when problems arise help foster a stronger culture of improvement.

Die F?rderung von Mitarbeiterengagement ist eine der grundlegenden S?ulen einer starken Qualit?tskultur. Durch die Schaffung von Transparenz, die Einrichtung von Feedback-Kan?len und die Implementierung von Mitarbeiteranerkennungsprogrammen k?nnen Unternehmen eine Atmosph?re des Vertrauens und der Wertsch?tzung kreieren. Indem Mitarbeitern klare Ziele gesetzt und die n?tigen Ressourcen und Freir?ume für deren Erreichung bereitgestellt werden, f?rdert man Eigenverantwortung und Kreativit?t. Zudem ist es wichtig, Erfolge gemeinsam zu feiern und herausragende Leistungen im Bereich Qualit?t sichtbar zu würdigen, um eine nachhaltige Motivation und Identifikation mit den Qualit?tszielen des Unternehmens zu f?rdern.

In my experience, fostering a quality culture requires presence and active interaction across the whole business value chain. To build the engagement, Quality (and subsequent champions such as managers) should practice GEMBA, Go-and-See, as a normal activity that is not triggered by non-compliance or investigation. Sharing information on what quality is, and not just as a "proverbial" stick, can start to open dialogues with employees, which may mean support and information can be more forthcoming. Another tool is a "You said, We did" board. Where quality issues or improvements are identified, prove the leadership and engineering commitment by publicly tracking and displaying progress against these - embed it into the working day/week.

Low employee engagement when looking at the process and function of quality within an organization is often directly linked to a lack of support and buy in from the top of the organization. Poor process development and a lack of horizontal managment puts the burden of accountability on lower level managers and employees within the organization, these employees often lack the resources and knowledge to tackle a multi-disciplined task with many moving parts and unfamiliar metrics. Acheiving success with quality processes requires tribal knowledge across various teirs of the organization as well as quality champions to facilitate and mediate a smooth transition of knowledge.