What are Quality Standards?
Quality standards are sets of good management operations, methods, systems, requirements, and/or specs set up by industry advisory groups to help manufacturers achieve and show consistent production and product quality.
Some quality standards refer to a broad spectrum of manufacturing and service organizations, while others are industry centric.
What you are going to learn?
Definition of Quality Standards
Quality standards are the documents that provide requirements, specifications, blueprints, guidelines, or characteristics that can be used frequently to ensure that materials, processes, products, and services are fit for their purpose.
A quality standard is a detail of the requirements, specifications, the various guidelines and characteristics to meet its quality by the product in order to meet the purpose of the product, process, or the service.
Understanding Quality Standards
Quality standards assure companies meet the minimum requirements to become an integral part of almost every industry, from food to automobile to healthcare. It’s clear that those standards are here forever.
Some organizations find the concepts of quality standards hard, or they consider it as a complex system. But with proper information, help and a clear understanding of why quality standards can benefit them, organizations can learn to take advantage of quality standards rather than buck against them.
Who Sets Quality Standards?
made by Industry groups, Governments or Consumer representative organizations, and there are often structures for independent assessment by regulatory bodies often with lawful (fire safety and food standards) legal (professional registration or industry guarantee compliance) or simply trade association favoring.
Principles of Quality Standards
Quality standards may consist of guidelines for quality planning, control, and checking phases of production. They also may reward companies to maintain continuous improvement initiatives through closed-loop quality systems.
Some quality standards were formed in response to concerns about a significant level of customer complaints. They often involve companies in implementing effective complaint management mechanisms.
Here are seven quality management principles designed to guide companies toward improvement;
1. Customer Improvement:
Recognize customer needs and expectations and adjust company objectives with them; then maintain customer satisfaction by meeting customer requirements and building customer relationships.
2. Leadership:
Strong leadership means you have a distinct vision of your company’s future. Apply leadership principles, including vision, goal-set, modeling, faith, empowerment, and recognition.
3. Engagement:
Invest in employee empowerment, communication, accountability, and recognition. This can then help to enhance employee productivity and motivation.
4. Process Approach:
Developing processes for each area of your business, from sales to marketing, finance to HR, will secure that resources are used most effectively, resulting in cost-sufficient and consistent results. It also allows you to give time and attention to bigger and more interesting tasks!
5. Improvement:
Continuous improvement is essential to the quality management system and should be your organisation’s core aim. Applying processes for finding risks and opportunities, spotting and solving non-conformities, and measuring and monitoring your efforts means you will find ways to improve and make your business even stronger.
6. Evidence-Based Decision Making:
Correct and reliable data is vital for making informed decisions. For example, to solve the root cause of a non-conformity, you need the proper evidence. Always make sure that information is accessible to those who need it and keep communication channels open.
7. Relationship Management:
Your suppliers are the source of competitive advantages, but this involves a relationship built on trust. Establishing such lasting relationships with suppliers and other involved parties means stabilizing short-term financial gains with long-term, mutually beneficial strategies.
Benefits of Quality Standards
Businesses apply standards to meet their customers’ quality requirements and for a range of other reasons, such as;
- Providing safety and reliability of their products and services
- Complying with laws, often at a lower cost
- Controlling internal processes
- Satisfying environmental objectives
Businesses which follow quality management standards are often more able to:
- Multiply their profits
- Cut down losses or costs across the business
- Increase their competitiveness
- Gain market entry across the world
- Build consumer loyalty
Example of Quality Standards
Here are some of the most prevalent quality standards;
ISO 9000
Developed by International Organization of Standardization, ISO 9000 is a family of standards and ISO 9001 is within that family, both set for good management practices for quality management systems.
IATF 16949
Formed by members of the International Automotive Task Force (IATF) and accepted and published by ISO, IATF 16949 specifies the requirements for quality management systems used by the automotive industry.
IAQG 9100
The International Aerospace Quality Group (IAQG) has developed standards for quality management systems for aviation, space, and defense industries. Like IATF 16949, the IAQG 9100 standard is set up upon the ISO 9001 standard such that compliance with the former requires compliance with the latter.
IRIS
The International Railway Industry Standard (IRIS) creates a global system for evaluation of quality outcomes from manufacturers that supply the railway industry.
FDA 21 CRF Part 11
US Foods and Drug Administration (FDA) standard applies to FDA-regulated industries, including pharmaceuticals, medical appliances, diagnostics, and biotech industries. It sets up requirements for manufacturing software system control, validation, analyzing, auditing, and documentation.
GMP/GLP
Good Manufacturing Practices and Good Laboratory Practices are the quality standards established by the US FDA for healthcare product manufacturers, especially those using laboratories and process manufacturing.
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