Unlocking the Power of Your QMS: Keys to Business Performance Improvement

Best-selling authors, Cianfrani and West, offer an overview of the principles behind quality management systems (QMS) and the issues most organizations face today while trying to successfully implement them. Many organizations struggle with tracing their improvements back to the QMS. This book discusses how to successfully implement an effective QMS by engaging top management, focusing on the customer, embracing the continual improvement process, and changing your thinking on corrective and preventive action along with the way you audit. Implementing an effective QMS includes methods for self-assessment that show what successes can be traced back to the organizations processes and operations.

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1. The Principles Behind Quality Management
Systems
Origins of the Principles of Organizational Quality
Management
The 12 Principles of Organizational Quality Management
Interaction among the 12 Principles
Maturity of the Quality Management System
Dimensions of Quality Management System Maturity
The Dilemma
The Principles and Organizational Transformation
Using the Principles of Organizational Quality
Management
What Can I Do Now?
Chapter 2. Engage Top Management
What Motivates Top Management
Integration of Quality Management with the Purposes
of the Organization
Emphasis on Process and Performance Rather Than
Paper
Understanding the Role of Quality Management
Quality Speak vs Money Speak
How to Engage Top Managers—The Eight Virtues
Engaging Top Managers
What Can I Do Now?
Chapter 3. Shift the Focus from Internal Operations
to the External Customer
Internal Focus
Using Quality Management to Focus the Entire
Organization on the Customer
Customer Requirements
Process Approach
Policy, Objectives, and Alignment
Management Review
Internal Audit
Customer Satisfaction
What Can I Do Now?
Chapter 4. Achieve Alignment
Why Is Alignment So Critical?
Align Mission, Vision, Plans, and Policy
Align the Organization’s Objectives
Measure Progress toward Objectives and the Balanced
Scorecard
Develop and Deploy the Key Drivers of Performance
Achieve Alignment of the Leaders
Top Management Review, Action, and Ongoing Alignment
Modify the Infrastructure to Include Improvement
Align People—Get Everyone Involved
Information, Expectations, Boundary Management,
and Environment
Organizational Culture and Behavior
What Can I Do Now?
Chapter 5. Use Process Management Techniques
System Approach to Management and Systems Thinking
Basics of Process Management
Manage the System
Process Champions, Process Ownership, and
Process Teams
SIPOC—Identify Customers and Suppliers for Each
Key Process
Resources and Controls
Other Process Interactions
Flowchart of the Process
Process Analysis and Improvement
Determine and Measure Key Independent Process
Variables
Preventive Action
Implementation of Process Changes
Measures of Process Performance
The Role of Top Management
What Can I Do Now?
Chapter 6. Embrace Continual Improvement
The Basics of Continual Improvement
Continual Improvement—Incremental and
Breakthrough
Continual Improvement—Improve the Processes
Continual Improvement—Common Causes and
Special Causes
Continual Improvement—Project by Project
Continual Improvement—Teamwork Is Always Best
Lean, Six Sigma, Kaizen, JIT, COQ, and the Rest
Continual Improvement—Implementation
What Can I Do Now?
Chapter 7. Change Your Thinking on Corrective
Action and Preventive Action
Correction and Corrective Action
Corrective Action Process
Corrective Action Tools and Training
Preventive Action—A Formal Management Activity
Preventive Action—Risk Assessment and Mitigation
Preventive Action—Chaos, Complexity, and Simple
Solutions
Preventive Action—Anticipating and Managing
Uncertainty
What Can I Do Now?
Chapter 8. Change the Way You Audit
Why Audit?
How Internal Audits Can Be Different—Going Beyond
Train the Auditors to Go Beyond
Structuring the Audit Process
Tactics to Maximize the Value of the Audit Process
Audit Results and Corrective Action
How to Justify Investment in a Robust Internal
Audit Process
Leaders Need to Take Action
What Can I Do Now?
Chapter 9. Self-Assessment
Self-Assessment and Internal Audit—Two Different
Concepts
Why Conduct Self-Assessments
Conducting Self-Assessments
Prioritization of Actions
Relationship to Management Review
What Can I Do Now?
Chapter 10. Revitalize the Organization
Long-term Sustained Growth
Strategic Planning and the Quality Management System
The External Scan
Self-Assessment and Internal Scan
Strategic Thinking
The Drivers of Change
Workforce Readiness to Make the Changes
Review Organizational Basics
Reevaluate the Organization’s Objectives and Alignment
Determine, Develop, and Manage the New Key Processes
What Can I Do Now?
Reflections
Timing
Parts of the Organization Are at Different Levels of
Readiness to Change
Do Less and Get More Done
Do the Things You Know You Know How to Do
Actions Speak Louder Than Words
Notes
Index