Speaker 1: What does the quality department do and is there a difference between quality assurance and quality control? Probably. Hello, I'm Tom. Welcome to my channel where we talk about continuous improvement in an industrial setting. In today's video it's about the role of quality and quality assurance, quality control within the operation. And also after that we'll be going into and how does that link up to continuous improvement. Now first off, the quality department. It is a hugely important department in your operations but quality is not limited to them. You know especially as improvement professionals that quality is everyone's business. That is one of the main things you need to be producing. Giving a qualitative product to your customers is the basis for success. If you want to keep those customers, if you want to keep your markets, if you want to keep your business, if you want to keep your business, if you want to keep making profits in the future. So what do they actually do? Now there is indeed this difference between quality assurance and quality control. Both really focus on that in the end you get a good quality product out of the door. And for that and we'll do quality checks right. So we control or we check our product. We'll also check the input. So we check this how good is the burger that we make in the end. We're also going to check are the the buns that were supplied are they good? Is the meat fresh and does it have the correct quality parameters? You know things like microbial contamination or taste or how fresh is it for a salad. You know how hard is it? Does it break? Does it have the correct color? All kinds of things like that we've defined beforehand and we're now checking. But hey that definition. So we also have material specifications and how do we get in and out? So there are specifications of how should our hamburger look in the end. How should it taste in the end? But also to do these checks on the incoming materials we've got specifications of the incoming materials or even the service levels of suppliers. And this of course we will check from time to time. So we'll go out to those suppliers and we'll audit their factory. Or we'll follow up how the incoming quality checks have been over last months the last year. What do we see? Do we get any new results? What are the newガ Do we need to work with them? Can we improve something there? So that really is part of managing your inputs in general. And then also you have that, what are we delivering? In between, of course, we've also got our own factory. So we need to have processes and people that can really do what we need. Okay, so that's also going into the process. We need to know how hot do we have to make the burger? How long? How much of lettuce is going to be added on top? How is the way that we're going to pack everything? Do we need to pack it with gas or are we in a restaurant and we're just going to serve it? Can our operators and logistic people and our managers and our quality control people, can they actually do all of that? And that makes basically that part. So the whole thing here makes a quality management system. And a quality management system encompasses all of that. And the one you have heard about definitely is ISO. The other quality management and quality certifications, they differ a bit per industry and per market. So you've got your net gap. Or here in Europe, in food, you have IFS and BRC are very big ones. But ISO 9000 and 9001, those are the two that sort of underlie most of what any industry wants to do when they are managing quality. And in that, you've got a whole bunch of rules, basically, but a whole bunch of systems that you want to have in place where you also check what is going out, check your suppliers, discuss where you have problems. Improve on that. So it's a whole system. And that whole system of how you put that into place, that is the role of quality assurance. Doing the actual checks, that is quality control. Now, you already feel that there is some overlap, right? So checking a supplier. Quality assurance, quality control, usually it's logged in with quality assurance, but basically I'd say, don't put too much effort into that distinction. But this is what, within the operation, is meant with quality assurance and quality control. Setting up and really guiding the whole system of how do we produce qualitative products. And the control is really about making sure that we're following those process steps correctly. Probably got a number of critical control points in food. Definitely a thing. But in the middle of the process, we'll be measuring, you know, is the temperature of our heater really correct? So quality control. We were not checking the meat. We were not checking the final product, not the burger. No, we were checking a process parameter. All in the quality management system. And part of our quality control is also to do such checks. Now, what you will see in the whole quality sphere is that you also really have to think about your process, really. Really think about, you know, what could go wrong. So basically, you do sort of a failure mode and effect analysis, right? FMEA. And you put quality management systems in place and you have KPIs. And this, when you come to think of it, what is typically the quality department and your quality management system, doesn't it feel tremendously like lean, TPM, even more actually, Total Productive Maintenance, things that Six Sigma do? It is basically continuous improvement, isn't it? It's exactly the same things we're trying to do when we're working on continuous improvement or when we're working on our quality management system. And yet, in most companies, the quality department and the performance excellence or lean or continuous improvement department, they are separate. They're trying to do this. They're trying to do the same thing. So now, of course, you already feel it coming. The role of QA and QC in continuous improvement, it should be huge. Generally, QA is not too involved in, let's say, the real lean journey. So getting flow through the process. But then they are quite often, and I don't mean this in a negative way, but quite often slowing down those changes because they will be the conscience of your organization, reminding you, if we are going to make those changes, if we're going to make everything nice and lean and quick and fast, we still need to do these checks. We still have to stay within specifications. We still need the room to do things in the correct way. Let's not just reduce the burger frying time because it is also a quality step. It is an important step to safeguard our consumers, things like that. So even in those places where they are not really directly involved, because you're not fully aligned on, let's say, the goal of better quality management, the quality people, especially quality assurance, they are very much involved there as well. If you are going to do anything in the warehouse where your ingredients are going to be put in different places and you're going to change the system of how you register and manage where everything is placed and how things are placed next to each other, if you are working in food or pharma, but I think actually in any industry, and you're going to put things next to each other that might be allergens or that might easily be misplaced or swapped around, your quality team, hopefully, is going to really have a discussion with you, maybe not a fight, a discussion with you, because you are potentially damaging your whole process, your way of ensuring assurance. Quality assurance that you get a good product out of the door. So what does that mean for your improvement teams and your problem-solving teams and how you set up your training system and how you run your continuous improvement program in general? Get the quality people in, both quality assurance and quality control, although I will say quality control people are generally, because they're really working on the checks and the checks, they really know your product best after the operator. Get them involved in any problem-solving and in many process improvement things, because they really know the system of how you work with your processes, but the quality assurance people, wow, they should have such a pivotal role in your continuous improvement program. Now, in many organizations, they are already overloaded with work because we keep adding on external audits and need-to-do's and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on. New things we want our quality management system to do. In the end, it is a non-value-added cost. If you look at it in a very waste way of thinking, anything you do in the quality department is not directly producing a good product. We also tend to keep the quality departments as small as possible or, as many people in the offices would say, maybe a bit too small even to do what they really should be doing. So there's stress. So we have to keep the quality departments on their availability, on their workload in many companies, but get them involved, because continuous improvement and quality management, it is almost the same thing. That means you are natural allies and the continuous improvement team should be serving the quality department and the quality management system. And also, don't forget that when we are making improvements, we are solving problems and, because of that, having countermeasures that will change our standards. All of that, standards, processes, how we do things, what are our parameters, it is all part of the quality management system that is generally managed by the quality department, or at least they are the end owner. So it's everywhere, right? QA and QC, they make natural allies to the continuous improvement team. You really need to get them on board. Now, if you are a quality professional, the other thing is also the continuous improvement team is a wonderful place to also expand your experience. Think of doing, let's say, a one or maybe two year temporary role within the CI team as a way to broaden your experience and to really be able to improve that quality management system. Give your experience. Do what Lean and TPM and continuous improvement are doing for your organization. Learn from it as well, and then you can go back to quality work with new experiences or maybe you'll like it and you'll grow more in this Lean and Six Sigma way of thinking, but however you do that as an organization, also as a quality professional, think about really getting people from the quality department with a quality background into your continuous improvement efforts. QA and QC get their people back to work with a quality background that's really important. Now, you want to know a bit more about, you know, specifically the quality parts that are within continuous improvement, go check out my video on the quality pillar. And also, if you go through my videos, you will see so many things. And as a quality professional, you'll think, that is my work. And that was, of course, the whole message of this video. If you liked it, don't forget to hit that like button. Subscribe. I mean, I've got videos coming out at least every week, hopefully twice a week. And for now, I wish you the best of luck improving your quality management system. And as always, don't forget to enjoy the continuous improvement journey.