The supervisor Richard Shamoon working in a profitable company
today will tell you how important quality is to its bottom line. It is a simple
fact that without a high level of quality, the company’s days are numbered.
Manufacturing plants and service organizations, large or small, throughout the country
and world have embraced a quality-minded philosophy. Competitive, world-class
organizations are committed to producing high-quality products and providing
high-quality services. Top management recognizes the critical need for the
merger of a sound quality philosophy with the production of goods and services.
Globalization, foreign competition, and rising prices of raw materials due to
diminishing natural resources combine to make quality one of the foremost goals
in modern industry. The level of quality directly impacts the amount of waste
and rework a company experiences. Waste and rework increase costs and thus
consume profits. Eliminating waste also has a positive effect on our
environment. It takes less energy and material when quality rises. Quality is
every employee’s responsibility.
While management may implement quality management programs,
it is not always committed to them. Management shows signs of its commitment
through its slogans, its talk throughout the organization about quality
principles, the training it provides supervisors and employees, its continuous
improvement teams (CITs), and other efforts. Yet, in some organizations, managers
may say they value quality, but their behavior says something quite different.
When management behaves incongruently in this fashion, employees will believe
the behaviors and not the slogans and words. Managers who say one thing and do
another are bound to fail. Let us consider a story that illustrates clearly
what can happen when managers try to fool their employees into thinking they
value something when they really don’t.
MANAGEMENT’S RESPONSIBILITIES
Quality is not just the responsibility of one person or one
department in the organization as it once was. Today, everyone from the CEO to
the production worker or service provider is directly responsible for quality.
Supervisors play a key role in the success of any quality initiative. They
serve the vital communications link between management and the employee. They
must understand both the challenges of the workers and expectations of top
management. The quality philosophy is set into motion by the workers under the
leadership and guidance of their supervisor. Often, supervisors must coordinate
and schedule regular in-service training sessions for their direct reports. It
is imperative for supervisors to demonstrate a positive attitude toward
training by encouraging all employees to take part. Training to gain skills in
quality control must be a top priority for the supervisor. Their attitude and
commitment to quality serves as the role model for all employees. Employees are
the fundamental asset of any company. They should be knowledgeable of all expectations
placed on them. They must know exactly what is expected of them when it comes
to quality. A clear idea of these expectations will create an environment where
workers will take pride in their work, feel more secure, have high morale, and
produce high levels of productivity. Very few employees desire to go to work
and produce substandard products or provide substandard services. Having pride
in one’s work is highly motivating. Workers must be trained in all aspects of
quality improvement. Supervisors are often in the best position to champion
training programs offered in and out of the company. They might be expected to
train their employees. Supervisors directly help management create a climate
for innovation and continuous improvement.
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