#6 Drive down your TCoQ
with 3 fundamental truths about human nature

According to our equation, there are at least three ways things can go wrong. We might have:

1. People who aren’t capable and committed.
2. Processes that aren’t effective.
3. Capable, committed people who aren’t following effective quality processes (with compliance represented by the “+” in the middle).

Given that we all want quality outcomes, why do issues with people, compliance and processes persist?

In 2019, Gartner surveyed 300 end users of quality processes to uncover the reasons for noncompliance.^[2] (An important undertaking given that 45% of customer complaints stem from noncompliance with a quality process—and one in two employees agree that they didn’t fully comply with the last quality process they “completed”.)

The results revealed that noncompliant personnel understood and believed in the value of the quality processes they were circumventing. They didn’t need more education about the importance of quality processes. They needed better processes.

Specifically, they needed processes that required much less effort, were clearer (in terms of what needed to be done and when), and offered a sense of accountability.

In other words, noncompliance could be traced to the reasons kids don’t do their chores—or find creative ways to reinterpret them. If whatever-it-is takes too long, they skip steps, look for shortcuts or avoid doing it altogether. If anything is unclear, it doesn’t get done—or doesn’t get done right. And if no one’s keeping track, it might not get done at all.

This is human nature—and it’s something we don’t grow out of.

Let’s begin by considering three key questions—and the responses that help to ensure quality.  As we’ll see, each challenge can be traced to one or more of the three major obstacles Gartner identified: too much effort, too little clarity, and not enough accountability. 

1. How do we ensure that our people are capable and committed?

Capability and commitment are tricky to define or prove, so let’s drill down to the basics:

• What’s preventing them from doing the right thing?
• What are we doing to remove those barriers?

As we all know, smart people do dumb things when they don’t have the info they need—when they need it—to act intelligently.

Take, for example, shipments of noncompliant products that should have been blocked but somehow ended up with the customer. 

If all you have is manual communication, crucial signals are easily missed.

People go on coffee breaks and can’t be reached. The lab forgets to contact them again; the product gets shipped; and the company is hit with all the additional costs of external failure. 

Critical messages should not be left to chance. Automating communication via an eQMS removes effort, increases clarity and ensures accountability.

In this case, synchronized status updates between an eQMS and the ERP system—or automated emails and alerts from an eQMS—would have prevented nonconforming output from reaching the customer.

2. How do we ensure that our quality processes are effective?

Once again, let’s break this down into some basic (but tough!) questions:

• How easy is it to detect problems with a process? 
• How quickly can you figure out what’s causing the problems?
• How confident can you be that your processes are under control?

Without easy access to crucial information (that an eQMS provides), you’re flying blind—with no insights to feed your decision-making and no input for improvements. 

In this scenario, you’re faced with three big problems.

1: Quality issues are detected and escalated manually

As you already know, manual detection and escalation are time-intensive and error-prone. They’re also a huge waste of talent.

Powerful fix: Configure the appropriate alerts in an eQMS and leave your team free to focus on vital operational improvements.

2: There’s limited insight into root causes

Scattered data and a lack of suitable data analytics tools mean that quality teams are often buried in data and starved of insights. Without a clear overview of the situation, continuous improvement becomes extremely difficult.

Powerful fix: The right eQMS spots trends in deviations, surfaces root causes and reveals their consequences instantly. Your team can then take a data-driven approach to problems, focusing on areas with the greatest impact on your TCoQ and overall quality performance.

3: You lack confidence in your processes

Because you can’t be sure which processes are well controlled, you’re forced to conduct unnecessary “just-in-case” checks. This wastes time and money (as you can’t risk the costs and reputational damage of external failure).

Powerful fix: Statistical process control helps quality teams figure out which processes are well controlled, uncover bottlenecks and gradually shift from product testing to process testing. This helps you optimize the allocation of test capacity, reduce inspections and drive down appraisal costs. 

An emphasis on process audits—rather than on product audits—is a sure sign of a mature quality function. Effective, well-controlled processes naturally yield high-quality, conforming output.

3. How do we ensure that people comply with quality processes?

Let’s start by turning the spotlight away from people to processes. Do our quality processes reflect what we know of human nature?

It’s no secret that quality processes can be unnecessarily tedious and confusing. And yet ease of use is about much more than just user “comfort”. It’s a critical enabler of compliance and a quality-first mindset.

An effective eQMS anticipates pain points—and makes compliance easy and intuitive. (As we’ve already discovered, a significant reduction in effort can boost compliance by 30%.)

Tracking—and the accountability it creates—can be useful but, wherever possible, compliance should be automated. In an ideal situation, production simply could not proceed if a quality process had been skipped.

An eQMS can be used to embed quality processes into production, thereby enforcing adherence. For example, you could implement a system in which production could not continue unless the necessary line clearance and cleaning steps had been completed. 

This has the added advantage of increasing organizational agility. Instead of waiting for people to “adjust” to a new process, refinements and alterations could be introduced immediately.