Quality management system guide – How to implement ISO 9001: 2015?

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How to manage quality in production, service and other processes?

Quality management in production, services and main processes is a very difficult task. As the topic is wide and covers many issues, I will divide it into parts. First, I will describe the general principles of quality management in the main processes (those generating a product and/or service). I will devote the next part to ensuring quality in production. Then I will describe how to manage the quality of services. If necessary, I will summarize this information.

General principles of quality management in main processes.
To manage quality, first we must explain what quality is and how it should be perceived. Of course, in standards and publications, you will find a lot of definitions that do not necessarily bring about enlightenment. Let me put it straight!

Quality is the fulfillment of customer requirements that we have committed ourselves to meet. It is divided into:

1. Engineering Quality (also known as technical). Engineering quality is the fulfillment of specific, clearly measurable customer requirements. We measure it by the degree to which these requirements are met. We say Engineering Quality is when we meet 100% of customer specifications.
2. Perceived quality. It is a fulfillment of unspecified and not always verbalized customer requirements. These are the requirements for:
   – interaction between people on the client’s side and ours
   – response times
   – the way of communication
   – all other factors that affect our perception.

We investigate this type of quality by means of questionnaires and questions like “Are you satisfied with our service?”

Privately perceived quality is what I call “customer’s neglect” :).

The customer is usually not present in the production processes. If it does, it should be at pickups or during deliveries. Hence, perceived quality will be secondary (which does not mean that it is not important). Engineering quality will be the priority of the palm.
There are two scenarios in service provision processes:

1. The service is provided without the customer’s participation, it appears at the receipts or during the delivery. The situation with the quality is the same as with the production.
2. The service is provided with the participation of the client. In this case, the perceived quality determines the engineering quality, because we can be the best specialist in our field, but when we are a rude, the client will not want us.