Quality assurance isn’t just a matter of consistently implementing and applying a quality management system. Additionally, your company needs to carry out e an advanced quality strategy. In this article, you’ll find out how to define an advanced quality strategy that’s in line with your business goals.
A quality strategy focuses on the quality objectives in the long term. Where are we now and what do we want to achieve? To obtain optimal results, it’s essential to align your quality strategy with the overall business strategy.
Companies with healthy growth ambitions, work according to a business strategy drawn up by the management. It clearly states where the company wants to be within a few years and how this ambition should be achieved.
This business strategy is then divided into various sub-strategies, including a quality strategy. Therefore, the quality strategy is an integral part of the overall business strategy. In order to ensure a sustainable future for the company, the intended growth must never be at the expense of quality.
The aim of a quality strategy is the continuous improvement of quality. If you don’t improve, you’ll inevitably do worse in the end. In order to achieve the desired progress, it is necessary to set goals after looking ahead and anticipating the future. Your quality strategy gives direction to progress.
Developing a quality strategy also means setting quantifiable quality targets. These must, of course, be realistic. Setting ‘no consumer complaints’ as a goal, is a utopian dream in this respect. What could be realistic, however, is that you do not want consumer complaints in the area of food safety and that you define how many complaints aimed at other areas of your business you are willing to tolerate.
One possibility is to link the number of complaints to the volume of sales, aiming for an acceptable maximum ratio of complaints to volume of sales. The ambition of a certain certification can be part of a quality strategy as well.
For each quality target it is necessary to develop a roadmap with clear actions coupled with intermediate measurements in order to achieve the ultimate objective. If you want a quality strategy to succeed, the entire organisation must take responsibility.
Quality is not an exclusive property of the quality department. It is important that each department and every employee feels involved to the fullest extent in the pursuit of the predefined quality strategy.
Would you like to know more about developing and implementing a quality strategy? Feel free to contact uw.