The 8 Principles of Quality
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Customer Focus
- Companies depend on customers therefore need to understand current and future customer needs.
- Ensuring company objectives are in line with customer needs and expectations
- Communicating customer needs and expectations throughout the company
- Measuring customer satisfaction and acting on results
- Systematically managing customer relationships
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Leadership
- Leaders establish an internal environment where people can become fully involved in achieving the company’s objectives
- Considering the needs of all interested parties i.e. customers, suppliers, employees etc.
- Setting challenging goals and targets
- Providing people with resources and training
- Inspiring, encouraging and recognising peoples contributions
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Involvement of People
- People are the basis of a company and their abilities should be used for the company’s benefit
- People understanding the contribution of their role in the company
- People identifying constraints on their performance
- People evaluating their performance against goals and objectives
- People openly discussing problems and issues
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Process Approach
- Desired results are achieved when activities and related resources are managed as a process
- Defining the activities to obtain a desired result
- Establishing responsibilities and accountability for managing key activities
- Focussing on factors such as resources, methods and materials to improve key activities at the company
- Evaluating risks, consequences and impacts on customers, suppliers and other interested parties
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System Approach to Management
- Understanding and managing inter-related processes as a system contributes to the company’s effectiveness and efficiency in achieving its objectives
- Structuring the system to achieve the company’s objectives in the most efficient way
- Understanding the interdependencies between the processes of the system
- Continually improving the system through measurement and evaluation
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Continual Improvement
- Continual improvement of the company’s overall performance should be a permanent objective
- Employing a consistent companywide approach to continual improvement of the company’s performance
- Establishing measures to track continual improvement
- Recognising and acknowledging improvement
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Factual Approach to decision Making
- Effective decisions are based on the analysis of data and information
- Ensuring that data and information are sufficiently accurate and reliable
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Mutually Beneficial Supplier Relationships
- The company and its suppliers are interdependent and a mutually beneficial relationship enhances the ability to create value
- Identifying and selecting key suppliers
