The Chartered Quality Institute (CQI) used to celebrate World Quality Day on the second Thursday in November. However, this year CQI is celebrating the World Quality Week from 8 to 12 November 2021. The QA (Quality Assurance) Consult associates itself fully with this celebration and aligns with the objectives of the celebration. The theme for this year’s celebration is "Sustainability: improving our products, people and planet". Quality has many definitions but the two definitions that perhaps resonates well with the theme for this year’s Quality week celebration is “fit for purpose” and customer satisfaction”. The CQI would like all businesses to celebrate this year’s World Quality Week by planning activities that goes to support product quality, the lives of people and the planet. The following are some proposed ideas from the CQI for consideration with my personal emphasis.

Host a lunch and learn session

Share a story about the positive impact of quality in your business or use one of CQI’s quality videos to help people to understand quality. The best lesson on quality is one that comes from the organisation. Tracking quality performance through quality KPIs will not only reveal what has been well achieved, but also the impact of quality products on customers. The outcome of focused improvement activities by quality circles that had a significant impact on quality should be shared to inspire the entire community of workers. This session presents the opportunity for discussions around the organisation’s quality policy and how it supports product quality and customer requirements.

Treat your organisation with a quality-themed coffee morning

One important quality principle is engagement of people. It is an extremely relevant principle which in my opinion has its pillars firmly fixed inside the concrete of common sense. Some argue that robots do work with high precision, but no robot made itself. The execution of a quality policy relies on the skill, knowledge, and competence of the people in the organisation. It is therefore imperative to empower line managers,
supervisors, factory hands and any other person working in the organisation. Employees working in quality circles and other departmental teams need to be supported to strengthen quality in the organisation. Use this quality week to build stronger working relationships with colleagues in other teams. A coffee/snack morning at the cafeteria is a good idea to have this conversation.

To gain support from other leaders in your organisation

Leadership is one of the principles of quality management. Senior management has the responsibility to steer the affairs of the organisation. It is their responsibility to provide the needed infrastructure, equipment and above all human resources to support the quality policy. In a week where quality is being celebrated across the globe senior management should be approached to support the event. In real terms, the quality week should be spearheaded by senior management to assure employees that, quality is everybody’s business and top management brings sharp focus on the collective quest to make quality a culture.

Challenge yourself or your team to Quality

Challenge yourself and your team to identify examples on how you can grow/maintain quality management processes through everyday activities. Several activities could be planned around this. Organise an interdepartmental quality quiz and come up with great prizes for participants and winners. Another way of enriching this part of the event is to create quality teams across the organisation to tackle emerging quality issues and come up with workable solutions.

Launch a never-walk-by challenge for quality; Each employee is given forms designed to report quality issues they come across as they move around the factory. Employees who can spot a certain number of quality issues would then be rewarded. Another activity that could catch the interest of employees is a poster campaign across the site. Challenge employees to design posters that talks about sustainability with respect to quality, people, and the planet. Open this challenge for two days and select the best posters for display across the factory. Finally, a consumer awareness campaign could be launched where all employees are released onto various markets to check on product quality on shelves and take the opportunity to educate consumers and customers on quality.

Record and post your own YouTube video to inspire your team.

Continuous education requires that such activities are recorded and placed on social media handles. Employees would be inspired seeing themselves on the company’s social media channels participating in the event. If inspiration comes by one person seeing himself on a You-Tube channel, it would be more inspirational to see the positive reactions and feedback viewers give on the activities.

Review CQI’s articles about creating customer value

The Chartered Quality Institute has several articles that has a lot of information on the theme of this year’s World Quality Week. These articles can be found on the CQI website, and such information could be used in quality talks across the organisation.

Conclusion

The World Quality Week is indeed just a few days of microscopic focus on quality. However, quality is an everyday concern and must be number one on the agenda of every organisation. Top management should use the opportunity to review the 2021

Quality Plan to ascertain whether they are on course, or a lot more needs to be done to achieve the KPIs set at the beginning of the year.

Quality as earlier stated has varied definitions, but those definitions can be encapsulated in the definition as expressed by the International Organisation for Standardization (ISO): “The totality of features and characteristics of a product or service that bear on its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs”. Have a fruitful World Quality Week and do send me some photos and videos using my email or WhatsApp.

Johnson Opoku-Boateng is the Chief Executive & Lead Consultant, QA CONSULT (Consultants and Trainers in Quality Assurance, Health & Safety, Environmental Management systems, Manufacturing Excellence and Food Safety). He is also a consumer safety advocate and helps businesses with regulatory affairs. He can be reached on +233209996002, email: johnson@qaconsultgh.com.