Challenging zero defects and strong "Made in China"

"Quality is free." This famous saying comes from Philip Crosby, the world-renowned "Father of Zero Defects", an American quality management master. He believes that if producers can always meet all the requirements during each operation, their product quality can be close to the goal of "zero defects", thereby avoiding the waste of traditional quality management on remedial measures. If a company's products always meet quality standards, the benefits it creates will not only cover the costs, but even exceed them. So the quality is not only free, it may also create more benefits.

"General quality management is to judge the quality of finished products through various inspection methods during the manufacturing process to see if they are qualified or unqualified products." Yang Zhenhua, Chairman of Yangzhi Consulting Group It is believed that the general quality management methods such as inspection and maintenance to improve product quality have huge cost waste. In response to this situation, Crosby put forward the management concept of "zero defect" in the 1960s, and began to implement the zero defect movement in the United States. It is the application of this management concept that "changed the way Americans do things and people." Lee Iacocca, the former president of Ford Motor Company and Chrysler Motor Company, once highly praised him: "When it comes to quality, no one can compare with Crosby, which is absolutely worth the money!" Today, after half a century of Development, this global management concept is gradually fermenting in China.

According to experts' estimates, the direct loss caused by quality problems in China's manufacturing industry exceeds 200 million yuan each year, and the indirect loss caused by the impact of product quality problems on downstream industries and the reduction of market share exceeds 1 trillion yuan. The direct or indirect loss caused by the quality problem of the enterprise reaches 20%-30% of the cost. After the quality management is carried out, only 5% of the cost can ensure that the enterprise has a high product qualification rate.

In today's China's manufacturing industry, on the way from a manufacturing power to a manufacturing power, it shoulders the new mission of reshaping "China's quality". Therefore, Chinese manufacturing enterprises urgently need the "zero defect" concept for themselves. Provide a strong impetus for reform.

The Essence of "Zero Defect"

What is Zero Defect Management? "'Zero defect' is a concept that cannot be completely achieved in practice." Yang Zhenhua pointed out. In fact, "zero defects" refers to the ultimate goal of having quality defects nearly equal to zero. In Crosby's view, the reason for quality waste is "not getting things right the first time", and the product does not meet the standard, thus forming a "defect". Under such a guiding ideology, producers and workers must follow the work attitude of "doing the right thing right the first time", and put an end to the idea of passing by and making mistakes and then correcting. Therefore, the concept of zero defects firmly grasps the source of waste, and requires people to focus on prevention beforehand, rather than "remedial" afterward.

"The idea of zero-defect management advocates that enterprises give full play to the subjective initiative of human beings to carry out operation and management. Producers and workers should strive to make their products and business have no defects, and strive for the goal of high quality standards. ” said Xie Zifeng, Director of CUHK Consulting Global Resource Center and Secretary General of Guangzhou Boya Industrial Research Institute.

The core essence of this management philosophy is "doing the right thing right the first time", which contains three levels of meaning: doing the right thing, doing things right and doing it right the first time . "Doing the right thing" means that the enterprise clearly puts forward the appropriate standards and requirements that the product needs to meet, while "doing the right thing" refers to the specific methodology for producing this standard product, which may involve different management tools, such as Six Sigma , Lean management, etc., and "doing it right the first time" is an attitude and awareness. Therefore, it is the ultimate goal of zero-defect to put the awareness of zero-defect into the whole company behavior, and to design a correct quality system to ensure the output of products that meet the quality standards.

However, what is a "standard"? Crosby emphasizes that "quality is conforming to the standard", which contains two meanings: the first meaning is as mentioned above, the product quality conforms to the standard, and the work result is close to "zero defect". It mainly emphasizes that in the process of work, each production process needs to meet the specified "standard", so as to achieve the quality goal of close to "zero defect" products. The second level of meaning is from the perspective of work results, the definition of this standard is "satisfying customers". With the development and evolution of this theory, more companies have found in practice that the new core of quality work is customer satisfaction as the center and continuous improvement as the foundation.

In the 1970s and 1980s, American automakers generally believed that consumers were willing to buy some cool-looking, powerful cars, but due to lack of insight into consumer demand, they quickly Lost a lot of consumers. In fact, consumers at that time preferred to buy smaller, more reliable and more fuel-efficient cars, so they mostly chose Japanese-made cars. It can be seen from this that when customer needs change, enterprises should also make corresponding product adjustments in order to produce products that meet customer "standards". Only in this way can the management concept of zero defects have practical significance.

In addition, Xie Zifeng believes that the concept of "zero defect" has a new development: "Zero defect management is like many management theories, because its core content is very classic and its effectiveness has been proven for a long time, so There is basically no change in the core content. The current extension is more about the expansion of the scope. Originally, manufacturing enterprises focused on zero-defect management of internal processes, extending to zero-defect management in the upstream and downstream of the entire supply chain, including upstream and downstream zero-defect management. Material suppliers to downstream logistics warehousing and distribution, and even to the quality management of supermarket shelves."

Find a breakthrough

In order to implement the "zero defect" management concept, establish a company management culture to important. "For Chinese manufacturing enterprises, the lack of values and 'structural defects' make zero-defect management often remain a slogan. Personally, I believe that the zero-defect management of Chinese manufacturing enterprises should be guided by the values of managers and producers. A system management method with the end as the beginning and the customer value as the guide." Xie Zifeng said that only when all employees of the company have a common understanding of quality management can it be possible to move towards the goal of "zero defect".

Samsung, which currently accounts for one-fifth of South Korea's GDP, has a well-known quality system called "Samsung New Management". It is precisely because of the implementation of this system that Samsung has developed from a little-known company to a world-renowned first-class company today. During Li Jianxi's tenure as chairman of Samsung, Samsung has undergone changes from the inside out. Prior to this, Samsung's product strategy has been to expand production lines and increase production. However, Samsung, which is heavy on quantity and light on quality, quickly formed a bad reputation in the market due to its poor quality products. In order to change the trend, Li Jianxi shouted the slogan "Everything must change except for his wife and children", which opened the prelude to Samsung's "new business reform". His thoughts and elaborations on the change implemented by Samsung were printed into the booklet "Samsung New Business", in which the "Samsung Constitution" formulated the etiquette and behavioral norms for Samsung employees. Code that Samsung employees must follow. This quality control-based change has allowed Samsung to rise from now on, and it is also doomed to Samsung's glory in the future.

Xie Zifeng said: "The breakthrough of zero-defect management is people. The first is the recognition of the top management of the enterprise, the guarantee of the system, and the commitment of the action, and the second is the full participation of the middle and grassroots personnel. The enterprise wants to To do a good job in zero-defect management, we must first have a medium-to-long-term plan, and then encourage all employees to participate." "Enterprises should focus on establishing a 'zero-defect' culture from leaders. Only business leaders can really realize it, and force it to promote and implement it. Only then can we continue to strengthen this concept and continuously improve this corporate culture." However, in the process of quality reform, the formulation and implementation of corporate culture is not an easy task, Yang Zhenhua added: "If the leadership does not implement it thoroughly, Then the result of quality change is likely to die in the hindrance."

Haier is the beneficiary of the "zero defect" management philosophy. From a small deficient factory to today's world-renowned enterprise, Haier has established a "zero defect" corporate culture. Through the implementation of this culture, Haier has undergone rapid changes and has finally become a global brand that trusts quality. Zhang Ruimin said that reform is like pushing a stone up a mountain. The leadership of an enterprise, including senior leaders and middle-level leaders, should promote this culture of continuous improvement without hesitation, so that the enterprise can improve its competitiveness from the ordinary and gradually form core competition. force.

In addition to the top-to-bottom reform, creating a model benchmark is also an effective breakthrough for implementing zero-defect management. "In practice, we can carry out point-to-point quality reforms by creating demonstration benchmarks. We can choose some typical projects to promote the implementation of this concept. If the project achieves remarkable results, through this kind of pilot and benchmarking It can effectively motivate the entire enterprise and replicate this model to other departments or other processes." Yang Zhenhua said.

To strengthen the control of the "zero defect" management process, it is necessary to establish a corresponding management mechanism. Xie Zifeng said: "Enterprises can introduce corresponding management systems to help them implement zero-defect management, such as Lean Six Sigma, TPM, TQM, etc. In addition, support for personnel incentives and performance systems is also very important." Essentially, To establish a management mechanism of continuous improvement is crucial to the long-term stability and continuous development of the enterprise. "For example, Samsung has established a department dedicated to promoting continuous innovation. This department can promote the overall process of quality management, including the supervision and evaluation of continuous improvement. By establishing this mechanism, the culture of quality management and continuous improvement can be rooted in the enterprise. Go, become one of its DNA." Yang Zhenhua reminded, "It is worth noting that some companies will also have a quality department to manage product quality, but it does not necessarily have the genes of continuous improvement; on the other hand, in order to promote quality management, There are full-time and non-full-time models for specific selection and training of employees.”

Rome was not built in a day, and the establishment of zero-defect management is a long process. There have been many twists and turns. However, as long as the company firmly implements this concept, it is believed that new breakthroughs will be ushered in in the future.

Picture / Jia Qiang