Ten New Truths on Quality

To succeed in a globally competitive marketplace, quality must be threaded throughout the corporate culture so that it is a priority and a personal obligation for everyone. Only when every employee can point to his or her own quality initiatives, will the company reach the level of commitment that's essential for success.

The average cost of bad quality in most companies is 20% of sales. When employees get work done more efficiently, the savings flow directly to the bottom line.

Doing something right the first time doesn't increase costs. It reduces costs because it's extremely expensive to have to do it again.

World-class companies design, document, refine, and record their processes, analyzing them, learning from them, and sharing them. Only by comparing your results against these businesses can you get a true picture of where you stand and where you need to go.

Accepting human error means setting expectations low. The goal is to remove the possibility for human error. So set the standard: Perfect quality. Perfect delivery. Perfect reliability. Perfect service. Every time.

Big jumps in cycle time are both necessary and achievable. Challenge your organization to find both large and small improvements—they reinforce and feed off each other, leading to long-term gains.

It does take time to do things right. But improving product quality goes hand-in-hand with speeding up cycle time. The net result is an increase in both speed and quality.

Businesses today are faced with increasingly complex products, fast-moving competitors, and customers whose expectations continue to grow. Quality improvements mean better products, lower prices, and faster delivery--all essential to any company's future growth and survival.

Your competition never stops and neither do rising customer expectations. To keep ahead, every business must continue the quest for perfection.

Valuable lessons can be learned from your competitors and even from those outside your industry. Learning best practices from other companies is an integral part of the quality process.