Unit 17 ways of running operations

Working together to satisfy the customer – one of the main ideas of any business.

The trouble is that it's not always easy to set up the operations so they reflect what customers want. But industry has worked hard to develop the sort of culture and environment that puts the customer first. There's a focus on teamwork, flexibility and involvement at all levels. Some traditional operations are particularly difficult to work with and change. Piecework and quality inspection are a couple of cases in point.

Piecework encourages individuals to turn out quantity. Pay cuffmakers more for producing more and they'll make cuffs fast, whether or not they're needed at the next stage. We know how this adds to the waste. If everyone is to concentrate on customer demand in a pull system, people have to co-operate more and work as a team.

When people are paid for quantity, they rush to make more. If there's a quality target - like 95 per cent - then everyone aims for 95 per cent of all goods to be free from defects or mistakes. But the other side of that target is that 5 per cent failure is OK. Add the negative message that, 'nearly good enough is good enough' to the positive message that we pay you more for making more, and all the emphasis is on quantity. So there are mistakes, but there's always the team of inspectors in white coats who find the faulty goods after they're made. The trouble is that these inspectors do not add value; they're a waste cost.

So modern quality management looks at getting it right first time, every time. It concentrates on people taking responsibility for their own quality, rather than leaving it to an inspector. And it encourages the people doing the job to find possible improvements, and make them for themselves.