Quality is fast becoming the business buzzword for the 1990's.

Customers want
better-quality products; faster turnaround; fewer service calls. At the same time,
companies are using the "quality" of their products and services as a sales and
marketing tool.
But achieving quality is a lot more complex than simply adding a phrase to your
company's advertisements. It means taking a series of steps that review and
revise every aspect of your business.
While a quality program can and should affect all employees from the typing pool
to the CEO, in a manufacturing context, it is often the production and distribution
areas that are most involved. That's because a total quality control program
means increasing customer satisfaction.
And that means getting the right product to the right customer at the right time.
As Eric Taylor, a regional director at Motorola Canada explains, "I'm a firm
believer that the only quality that matters is the measurement the customer gives
it. And that all ties together -- you can't isolate the quality of the product from your
on-time delivery from your ability to enter the order right."
The first step in starting a quality program is to reach an understanding, at the
top management level, of what quality means to the organization.
When Xerox Canada began its quality program in 1983, defining quality and
getting the message out to the troops were the company's first priority.
"Right from the beginning, we made the definition of quality really clear." says
Gunter Haibach, Xerox's national manager of transportation. Management made
sure that every employee understood the new program by attending a training
course called "leadership through quality."
In 1987, Motorola's quality program was announced to its 100,000 employees
worldwide in a memo from chairman Robert W. Galvin. The objectives outlined in
the memo were to improve product and service quality tenfold by 1989; a 100percent improvement by 1991; and to be at six sigma quality by 1992.
Employee training, as at Xerox, was a priority. In 1988, the entire 3,000-member
staff of Motorola Canada attended courses on understanding the six sigma
program, and/or cycle time reduction. The computer and electronics
manufacturer invested more than one percent of its $387.7 million revenue in

1988 on training, and has a goal of spending four percent of total revenue on
such programs.
Once the overall aims of the quality program are understood, it's time to put
theory into action. That means identifying defects and taking steps to correct
them. Motorola's six-step process is a method typical of those recommended by
quality experts:
1.) Define the product or service.
2.) Identify customers and their needs.
3.) Determine what is needed to satisfy the customer
4.) Identify the process for creating that product or service.
5.) Eliminate waste from the process.
6.) Measure results for continuous improvement.