Two Faces of Manufacturing Quality Problems: Product and Process

Delivering quality is the most important business objective for any manufacturing firm. If you have a great product but fail to maintain quality and face quality problems consistently, you are likely to lose success to your competitors’ hand.

Any business must value quality over quantity. This is the only best way to communicate with your customers and build lasting relationships with them. Also, a business’s performance and sustainability depend on the quality they deliver.

Even though quality wins, many businesses still think it is the volume of products they deliver that works for their success. This is often due to the short-term success that makes them unable to notice the harm they are making to the business for the long term.

Quality has become such a debatable topic for the manufacturing industry due to its significance in two important aspects – Product and Process.

Product Quality and Process Quality are the two sides of a coin. Both have an equal contribution in achieving customer satisfaction.

Process Quality

Process quality is all about ensuring proper and compliant processes to be followed for delivering a quality product. The processes should be streamlined and effective enough to ensure:

• Right processes are followed
• All the machinery and equipment are functioning well
• There is a backup plan for any damage occurrence
• All the inventory and stock are in check
• Variability ratio is not high.

Emphasizing on process quality has resulted in tremendous improvements like minimum product recalls. Many of the companies have already started the transformation with industry 4.0. The investment in analytics and robotics has helped them improve organizational productivity and processes. Moreover, there is a dramatic decrease in costs of quality. Such an increased focus on process quality is totally worth for the quality milestones that manufacturing industry has achieved.

Product Quality

Product quality is all about delivering the conforming product that can serve its intended use. Any quality problems may be classified as the product quality issue since it will affect the functionality. For example, if there is a design error, it will ultimately lead to product failure. However, the cost of product quality issues is always higher than the process of quality problems.

And the real trouble is identifying the quality problems that need urgent attention. This can be done only with the help of a robust Enterprise Quality Management Solution like Qualityze that enables you to establish a compliant process of quality assurance while ensuring continual improvement. The biggest advantage is that you will be able to resolve product quality issues before it reaches to the customers and harms your brand image.

Benefits of Maintaining Product and Process Quality

Maintaining product and process quality could bring numerous benefits for the growth of your business and reduced operational risks.  Some of the benefits include:

Building and keeping Brand Reputation Online

Since this is a digital arena, you need to maintain the brand image online. This internet-connected world has given your customers a superpower to make or break your brand with their reviews or feedback. If there is some negative customer experience, it spreads like fire. And, nobody wants that. Right?

You must make serious efforts to maintain your brand reputation online through regular engagement with your customers. You can also invest in a customer complaints management system for efficient and effective tracking and resolution of the quality problems your customers might have experienced.

It doesn’t really matter that you receive a good or bad review, what matters is how you handle it. Regular attention and response to your customers’ words may help you become trustworthy and a brand that cares for their customers.

Lasting Customer Relationships

Keeping customers satisfied is the critical aspect for building customer relationships that last. Delivering quality will increase brand loyalty in your customers so they will keep coming back. This will further lead to increased sales and revenue for an improved bottom line.

Additionally, the repeat customers will become a good source of marketing for your business as their reviews and recommendations will make way for new customers. This strategy works for every business if followed and practiced regularly. Valuing your customers can do wonders to become a trustworthy brand.

You must implement a quality management system to ensure continuous improvement in the product as well as process quality. It will help you maintain the consistency of repeat customers, new customers and a significant increase in revenue.

Gaining Competitive Edge

Gaining competitive edge doesn’t depend on one-time activities, it requires recurring efforts. You have to go the extra mile for continuous improvements. This doesn’t only boost brand loyalty, but also convey customers that they are investing the best quality. And, customers do appreciate such brand efforts for quality improvements.

By continuously striving for standards and best quality, you can also stand out from the crowd with your unique identity in the industry. The old saying “The Early Bird Gets the Worm” is a perfect fit for the industry leaders who innovate and set an example for others.

If you want to gain a competitive edge too, invest your time in identifying the new ways that upon implementation can make a value proposition. This will enhance your brand image too.

Learning from your own Mistakes

Every business strategy doesn’t work as expected. We may tend to miss certain aspects that often lead to failure. Such mistakes should not restrict you from doing something new. Besides, you should take away the learning for an improved strategy for the next time.

This is not applicable for mistakes only. Even if something works good for your business, you should learn from the aspects that made your strategy successful. Whether it’s good or bad, every result carries some learning for you.

Though we are all afraid of mistakes especially the ones that make us experience a downturn, we tend to come up with a solid plan to manage similar incidences in the near future. And, that’s something great about learnings. If you are ready to improve, you should be ready for learnings as well.

All these benefits demonstrate why quality matters for both aspects of manufacturing: Process and Product. However, ensuring quality and continuous improvements would be possible only when you have a powerful Enterprise Quality Management Suite like Qualityze in place.

Qualityze is a suite of 10 robust components including Non-Conformance, CAPA, Document, Change, Training, Supplier Quality, Complaints, Calibration and Maintenance Management Solution that enables you to establish a closed-loop quality management system for improved quality and reduced operational risks.

So, manufacturers, take the lead for quality improvements in your process’s and product’s quality before your competitors and become the trend-setter.