tqm insights

No longer is an ISO certificate a VIP pass; at most, it is a signal of the corporation's commitment to meet customers' various requirements, be they quality, safety, or other facets. These certificates do not guarantee market share, or profits. Ultimately, obtaining these certificates means only meeting third parties' minimum standards; it does not necessarily maximize corporations' productivity, operation efficiency, or profitability. It is by no means the end of the journey to business excellence.

Then, what's next?

There are still many tools you can utilize; Lean is one of them. It focuses on enhancing productivity by eliminating non-value-added processes and allocating resources effectively. As you may know, every organization is a set of processes. What you may not know is that many of them can be obsolete or useless. To make it worse, these processes are still taking up valuable resources; losses to these processes can be way more than you expect.

Six Sigma is another powerful tool. Indeed, it is more than a tool, but also a philosophy. By Six Sigma, it means controlling the rate of defect at less than 3.4 per million operations. It is a top-down approach aiming at eliminating defects, saving valuable corporate resources. With a typical Six Sigma project saving USD$100k, the result of implementing Six Sigma is enormous.

To the ultimate, business process re-engineering can also be the choice. It ignores all current processes and starts with a re-design of business processes aiming at breakthrough business performance.

Of course, there are still many to choose from. Eventually which is to be deployed depends on the business nature and corporation situation. Nevertheless, all business improvement projects require total commitment. How committed is your corporation to business excellence?