Running a Small Business

Lesson 2: Ensuring Quality

Producing the required quality

Now you want to ensure that your products and services will have the characteristics that your customers want and value. The way to do that is to consistently apply a process which will lead you through production is an organized way, every step properly documented and checked. The result will then be exactly as planned and that result can be reproduced at will.

To apply such a process, you have to look at how the characteristics in question are produced in the product or service you're selling. You want to know what is done to provide a particular characteristic. Then you make sure that activity is done correctly. Finally you test for the characteristic you want and make sure it is there the way you defined it. It's a "Define" what you want done; "Decide" how to do it; "Carry Out" the activity; "Check" the result process and it has to be documented.

Here's a simple example for a business support service which involves promotional writing. The quality you want to ensure is correct spelling. You've put this on your "Essential" list and now you put yourself in your customer's place. Yes, it's definitely essential but your customer sells internationally and you know that the spelling of English differs in Canada, England, Australia etc. You need a way to check spelling which takes the different markets into account.

You have defined what has to be done. Now you have to decide how to do it. You find that your Word Processor can use the appropriate dictionary for each country and you get those. You try it out and check the results - it works. You document the version, supplier etc. of each dictionary and you document what you did to test the result. That's kind of a trivial example but it shows how the whole concept of ensuring quality can work.

Let's look at a product next. You've checked with your customers and they would like a special shiny finish on your product. You've defined what needs to be done - now you have to decide how to do it.

You find several suppliers, document their contact information, what they're offering and the claims they are making for their products. You determine how you can test that the finish has the required resistance to scrapes and its shininess and document how you plan to do that. You decide on a supplier, make sure you have documented instructions on how to use the product, apply the product according to the instructions and test the way you had planned. If the product fails the test, you can try again or go to another supplier. If it passes, the supplier becomes an approved supplier and you now know exactly how to apply and test this finish. Now you've completed carrying out and checking the activity and documented everything.

Success with quality lies in the details. There's extra work in ensuring quality but it's the only way you can reliably and consistently ensure that your customers are satisfied. And satisfied customers are the best way to achieve success with your small business.

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