Running a Small Business

Lesson 2: Ensuring Quality

Corrective action

If you're committed to "total" quality, you will have a "problems" file or a collection of complaints, warranty items and questionnaire results dealing with the performance of your product or service. In addition, you have test results from when you checked your supply before it was delivered. All this information points to problems with the way you produce what you're selling and it is very valuable feed-back which can help you improve how you do things.

Let's get back to our two examples. You applied the process of ensuring quality to achieving a promotional text free of spelling mistakes but appropriately spelled for the market in which the text was to be used. You purchased the spell-check dictionaries, installed and applied them, checked your work and documented everything. Now you have complaints about spelling mistakes.

You take a selection of the problem cases. Because you have everything documented, you can find each particular case, which dictionary you used, how the final product was checked etc. You go through the cases and find that the Australian dictionary in fact has a mistake in it - you correct that in the dictionary file. In all other cases you can't find any mistakes. You contact some of the customers and you find that their American marketing departments are checking the texts with American spelling - they weren't told that the spelling has to be appropriate to the target market. Now you have a communication problem rather than a product problem. Your order confirmation in future will spell out how the spelling is to be handled.

Let's take the case of our shiny finish - you have reports that it wears off on the corners after a couple of years. The product is out of warranty but, if you're committed to total quality, you will still take corrective action in your production process to avoid this problem for future deliveries.

You have everything documented and so you can check where the problem lies. This shouldn't be happening because, according to the documentation of the supplier, his finish is resistant to wear at corners. You contact the supplier but he is not cooperative. You strike him off your list of approved suppliers and look for an alternative, paying special attention to the resistance to wear. You document what you did. Your future production will not have this problem and you have improved your product.

Corrective action lies at the heart of ensuring quality. You can have the best intentions and lots of information about problems but, if you don't correct the problems in a structured, documented way, you are not ensuring quality in your supply. Closing the loop with corrective action means that you're totally committed to producing the level of quality that your customers want and you're totally committed to continuously improving your business practices wherever problems are found.

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