We’ve added another initiative to our lean work that ties together existing lean projects and complements our human resources plan.
The Quality Cycle Project, which I’m leading, links standard operating procedures, employee expectations, quality checks, error tracking, employee communication, training and development, and performance management.
The current state of quality control is not clearly defined and checking of work before release to clients is performed but not to any particular set of standards. Reliance on the expertise of project managers and senior designers is now the cornerstone of the quality process. It works but project managers needed a way to ensure consistency in the process and streamline it to reduce rework and ensure errors are not missed during our period of business and employee growth.We met with project managers and decided that the whole cycle needed to be addressed and not just the quality check piece. There needed to be standard operating procedure for design and quality checks, error tracking for improvement purposes, an understanding by employees of what was being checked, and a feedback loop including, training and best practices. All of this is linked then to human performance management, which includes the training and development piece, coaching, and performance improvement.
It’s important to note that all of this is to be achieved with the lean principles in mind. Foremost in these principles is that the view of this process is from the customer’s perspective. The quality cycle objective is to deliver quicker with higher quality. It’s also about improving the performance of the value stream and that can only be achieved with employee involvement and participation in the process. The quality cycle is not about individualizing and tracking employee performance. It is designed to improve overall company performance.
It is about individual accountability though. Managers will review through feedback, coaching, and documented training objectives how employees develop skills to improve performance. If a skill deficiency exists, a training plan is established and employees are accountable to improve the skill. In relation to what is measured, the process is very open and employees will be provided the list of deliverables that will be reviewed during the quality check process.
We are now at the check stage where we will run a trial of the future state starting the end of this month and then review and adapt before implementation company wide.
Go Montreal!!
Ken Hogan
Lean Guy at Genoa
