Plastics News Europe - July/August 2019 - 18

quality management

➡ Continued from page 17
Motivation, awareness and teamwork - the top management sets the
scene for quality management and
the culture of the company. They
need to encourage quality improvement, raise awareness of the real effects of poor quality and encourage
teamwork both inside departments
(quality circles) and across departmental boundaries (quality improvement teams). This needs motivation
and awareness at all levels of the
company (particularly for the top
management).
Creating the quality climate -
above all, top management needs to
create a quality climate where quality
is seen as the issue that will decide if
the company is in business next year
or not. Poor profits can stop expansion and growth, poor quality will kill
the company. Only top management
can create this climate.
"Many managers think that because they have got ISO 9001 then
their work in quality management is
complete.," said Kent. "This completely ignores the essential part that
quality improvement must take in
quality management. Quality man-

Robin Kent: "Quality
management
is not complete
without quality
improvement"

agement is not complete without
quality improvement."
At the same time, this implies that
in a company with a quality culture,
everybody has knowledge to contribute to quality assurance and improvement and every function in a company has a responsibility for quality. The
quality assurance/quality control
functions are only part of the chain of
quality throughout the company.
They are there simply as a checking
function - they do not produce the
products.

Quality management can be a
useful aid in today's product liability
environment, although Kent emphasised that 'whilst producing
quality management and producing
quality products will reduce the
likelihood of product liability issues
it can never remove the possibility
of product liability claims'. Strict liability requires only that a complainant prove that the product resulted
in the claim. There is no requirement to prove negligence on behalf
of the manufacturer.

Benefits
Good quality management can deliver exceptional benefits to companies, said Kent.
"But even worse, poor quality management will quickly destroy a company's reputation and a company. This is as much
about retaining what you have as about
gaining something."
Companies can expect improved quality
management to deliver a variety of benefits. One is better quality products, which
are an inevitable result of good quality
management. "It is what quality management is designed to do," said Kent. "However you define 'quality', a better-quality
product is a better product."
Another aspect, he added, is improved
customer satisfaction. Customers assume
that the products they buy are of good
quality, as they do not set out to, or knowingly buy, poor-quality products. Therefore,
they will be dissatisfied if the product they

buy is of poor quality and are very likely to
tell their friends. Customer satisfaction will
improve if a product is of superior quality to
what the customer expected. One almost
immediate benefit of improved customer
satisfaction will be improved sales - more
satisfied customers lead to increased sales
as customers return, purchase more products and, better still, spread the word. The
most powerful and cheapest sales method
of all is a recommendation from a satisfied
customer. Satisfied customers are a highly
effective means to generate and increase
market share.
Companies can reap benefits in other
areas as well. Very often businesses are not
aware of the costs of poor quality, in the
form of rework, retesting, recalls, returns
and so on. Proactively investing in quality
can dramatically reduce operational costs,
for example by reducing scrap, reworked

materials and external costs. And in turn,
reduced operational costs will increase
profits for any company, even if sales remain the same.
"And," said Kent, "there will be fewer
problems. Most of the time we spend at
work is dealing with problems caused by
poor-quality products or services. Eliminating or reducing quality problems leads to
staff who are more productive."
He added: "This will lead to improved
employee satisfaction. Staff who have quality products to sell, who have fewer customer problems and who have the time to
do productive work will be more motivated
and more satisfied in their jobs.
Dr Robin Kent is the author of "Quality
Management in Plastics Processing", Elsevier (2016). The graphic used was reproduced with permission, from this
book.

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25-26 March 2020
Amsterdam

july/august 2019

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Plastics News Europe - July/August 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Plastics News Europe - July/August 2019