The Greatest Quality Management System Failures in History

It was interesting to read that while the manufacturers mentioned in the article achieved QS and ISO certification their products had significant malfunctions and had to be recalled (The Greatest Quality Management System Failures in History, n.d). What I am gathering from this is that the organizations had policies and standard operating procedures in place, but that those weren’t always followed. 

I strongly believe that if quality had been area of focus, a lot of these issues could have been prevented. According to Watt (2014), the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) defines quality as the degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfill requirements. This means that the first step in the process is to plan how to achieve quality by setting standards and putting processes in place to achieve those standards. The next step would be quality assurance, which means ensuring that the quality plan is being followed during operations, and taking corrective actions if it is not being followed (Watt, 2014). This is where some of the issues mentioned in the article should have been identified. While there is always the factor of human error, I do believe that when there is a focus on quality, a lot of the errors can either be avoided or reduced. 

My job is QAPI (Quality Assurance and Performance Improvement). I don’t work in manufacturing; I work in solid organ transplant. And yet, as I was reading the chapter on Quality Planning, I identified many similarities. Watt (2014) argues the importance of following government regulations and internal policies. Transplant is highly regulated both by the government and by the national organization for organ sharing, and we are frequently audited for compliance. In addition to that, it is my job to write the internal policies and ensure they are being followed. I also work with groups and individuals in the department in order to develop standard operating procedures. These help us ensure that policies are followed, the work is being done in a consistent and efficient manner with an emphasis on patient safety. In the article I read that a quality management system can only be effective if management insists on adherence and accountability (The Greatest Quality Management System Failures in History, n.d.). I agree with this statement, but this is definitely the hardest part of my job. Writing policies and standard operating procedures is simple in comparison to effectively communicating the importance of such to staff, and ensuring that they adhere to them. Auditing and data collection/analysis are way for me to evaluate how well we are doing and where improvements need to be made. 

With that said, I don’t believe that a quick and robust solution of the problems identified by the driverless car users is the key activity to guarantee customer satisfaction. I believe that the focus should be on preventing problems in the first place, which can be achieved through a robust quality plan. The manufactures should focus on data collection that can help them identify potential issues and areas of improvement. Apple collects data from its users in order to fix bugs and make improvements to their devices. Google does the same. I do believe that fixing a reported issue quickly once reported helps with customer satisfaction, but that is not the key to customer satisfaction. 

o, I don’t believe that I don’t think a mistake can be completely avoided but minimized to its lowest form. And from the article, we can learn that having a quality certification or being a member of a quality group will not assure that your products will pass without failure. Working to have good quality is the responsibility of everyone in the organization. Graham F. (2019) said that “Implementing Quality Management and investing in a QMS requires the initiative of executive sponsorship in any organization. Leadership typically doesn’t spend money without a strong business case that highlights either the costs of not investing (COPQ) or the market advantage that can be gained by investing.” Top leadership must be very responsible and make sure quality management is one of the top main issues as it defines the overall success of the firm. Most of the time executives fail to do this because it is hard to directly measure the importance and outcome of quality management quantitatively.

I am a programmer and I appreciate technology-based resolution to human satisfaction. But I value quality especially when it is something that can have a big impact on human life and the world if not done with quality. If driverless cars are not done with the utmost quality the damage will not only be money but also life the most precious thing in the world. When driverless cars are made, they need to take time and be tested thoroughly as there can be a lot of ways they can fail if not made with good quality. Alex H.(2014) said, “Self-driving cars will prove an irresistible target for hackers if they ever hit the roads.”. This is just one scenario. So companies should make a robust resolution but I would prefer it to be safe than quick which I think everyone else too. And as a personal opinion, It is really amazing how the technology is moving but I don't think we are at that moment of the generation that driverless car is a must to have.

 

The article describes different cases of failures in quality management system; specifically it describes failures of different companies and performing in different industries. Large global companies, from pharmaceutical to automotive manufacturers, experienced troubles in monitoring and auditing quality standards, causing massive recall of their products (The Greatest Quality Management System Failures in History, n.d.).  According to Smith, Thomas, and Quelch (2016), products recall is increasing from both new and established products, causing serious repercussions, in terms of brands and companies' damages. As stated by Watt (2014), high quality is achieved by planning rather than by reacting to problems after they are recognized. Quality planning is part of the initial planning process, generally, scope, budget, and schedule estimates are used to identify processes and products, where the expected quality should be identified (Watt, 2014). It is in the risk analysis process that it should be assessed and identified the level of risk that can affect the quality of the product (Watt, 2014). Although the testing phase of the product is a standard process, it can be useful to anticipate informally this process by, for example, using home-use testing able to identify and anticipate problems that can arise from the consumers’ use (Smith, Thomas, and Quelch, 2016). Thus, before the products reach the testing phase, designers can more effectively solve the problems. Additionally, in quality planning communication plays a central role, both internally and externally. Its duty should focus on restoring and strengthening the company’s reputation and the reputation of the product, informing and reassuring customers and stakeholders (Smith, Thomas, and Quelch, 2016). Moreover, logistics and information system should be prepared to isolate a product defect by batch, plant, process, or shift with identifiers such as serial numbers, maintaining the products traceability records efficiently (Smith, Thomas and Quelch, 2016). Ideally, a company should treat the recall as part of the current planning process, in order to establish a framework to able to implement effective resolutions (Smith, Thomas, and Quelch, 2016). By the early 2020s, car manufacturers will be competing on the development of driverless technologies aiming at introducing the first completely autonomous units in the market. How can be identified problems in order to assure customer satisfaction? In this context, quality assurance becomes increasingly urgent to ensure that digitalization works, its systems, and applications must be secure. In the autonomous car, the software is the element that must fulfill high-quality criteria (Graz University of Technology, 2018). Standardized inspections procedures have to be implemented, new informatics and software verification approaches will be critical to guarantee customer satisfaction. Thus, in order to assure quality, the focus is on the interaction between software and electronic systems, in terms of communication, data transfer and monitoring (Graz University of Technology, 2018). Driverless cars are just an example of the transformation introduced by Industry 4.0, where the attention on quality planning is shifting more on digitalization and software verification rather than the product on itself.     References: Watt, A. (2014). Project Management. BCcampus Open Textbook project. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. The Greatest Quality Management System Failures in History. Retrieved from: http://qualitymanagementsystem.com/total-quality-management/the-greatest-quality-management-system-failures-in-history/ N. Craig Smith, Robert J. Thomas, John Quelch. (2016, August 10). A Strategic Approach to Managing Product Recalls. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/1996/09/a-strategic-approach-to-managing-product-recalls. Graz University of Technology (2018, April 5). Quality assurance for autonomous systems. Retrieved from https://phys.org/news/2018-04-quality-autonomous.html.

Graham Freeman (2019). What is quality management and why does it matter? Retrieved from: - https://www.qualitymag.com/articles/95237-what-is-quality-management-and-why-does-it-matter

Alex Hern (2014). Self-driving cars irresistible to hackers, warns security executive. Retrieved from: - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jan/28/self-driving-cars-irresistible-hackers-security-executive