Policies and procedures define your processes, are a part of deploying your strategy, and identify what is important to the business.  ISO standards require certain procedures and forms as critical elements to improvement and a working management system.  Yet, how often have you contemplated your business strategy in terms of policies and procedures?

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Every enterprise has a strategy for growing sales.  But does your company include a strategic look at the Cost of Quality (COQ)?  If your strategy does not take into account your cost of quality then your strategy is only half-baked and you are likely to perform poorly.

What is Cost of Quality?

The cost of quality is typically explained as consisting of four elements: prevention, appraisal, internal failure and external failure costs.  But I have a simpler explanation.  Your business has three things to worry about:

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If you need to make a strong business case for the value of quality to management then you need Cost of Quality.  Crosby described the cost of quality as the cost of nonconformance.  Juran, another quality guru explained it as the cost of “poor” quality or the costs incurred as a result of poor quality.

If you are trying to explain the importance of quality to management then you need to explain it to management using the language of management — costs.  Cost of poor quality (COPQ) consists of four basic elements: prevention, appraisal, internal failures and external failures.

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How do you apply lean to product development?  I like to think that you can apply lean to anything and product development is no exception.  Yet, product development is different than manufacturing, so the application of lean is different.  Manufacturing is about reducing variability to zero to create exact replicas.  Product development is about increasing variability enough to overcome your barriers to greatness – i.e. thinking outside the box.  Design is the opposite of manufacturing in the application of lean.

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A procedure is like a recipe.  But someone has to write the recipe first.  So what is a good recipe for writing procedures?

Writing a good procedure is an iterative process.  The basic steps include developing a process map, drafting the procedure, drafting supporting documents (e.g. forms, job descriptions), testing the documented procedure with the real users, and then continuously updating your process map, procedure, and supporting documents in a PDCA cycle of continual improvement.

A lot of procedures don’t work.  Making a good procedure is about overcoming the top ten reasons why policies and procedures don’t work in the first place.  How do you make a good procedure good?  Good procedures have ten important characteristics.

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NEW Aerospace AS9100 Procedures Can Help

The International Aerospace Quality Group (IAQG) deadline for transitioning from the current AS9100 (revision B) of the aerospace standard to the newest revision (C) is July 1st, 2012, which means every company registered to AS9100 must have completed their transition.

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First, understand that your boss may not know he is a bad boss.  A hands-off manager may not realize that failure to provide any direction or feedback is a symptom of a bad boss. Instead, consider these 10 ways to deal with a bad boss.

1. Be nice to your boss. Never be rude or give your boss a reason to talk bad about you. Be a better person than your boss.

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A lot of people get promoted into a management position because of their skills and accomplishments, yet end up being a bad boss.  I am sure you have experienced a bad boss at some point in your career. Perhaps even more than one…  Have you ever had the opportunity to work with a good boss?  What makes a good boss good or a bad boss bad?

There are a lot of qualities that you might like to see in a boss.  Here are the top ten qualities that make a good boss:

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A lot of companies are implementing lean systems to develop a lean competitive advantage, but then question if what they are doing is really lean.  Some people think applying lean is like applying six sigma.  But, Lean is not like six sigma. So how do you know when you have gotten lean?  In other words, what does lean look like?  Here are ten simple ways to tell how lean you really are.

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What is a Quality Management System (QMS)?  It is a management system pure and simple.  It is not quality’s management system; it is a management system that, if done right, produces quality products.  Quality Management Systems are built for ISO registration, to satisfy customer requirements, or to produce better products.  Building a robust QMS is not hard if you follow these 10 easy steps.

1. Define and Map your processes.  The process of creating your process maps will force you to define your processes and the sequence and interaction of those processes.  Process maps are important for understanding who is responsible for what.  They define your core business process and communicate the flow of your business.  When mapping your processes:

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