How Can a Company Rate Their Quality in Today’s Evidence-Based Market?
According to Quality Guru Philip B. Crosby, the definition of quality is conformance to requirements (requirements meaning both the product and the customer's requirements). The performance standard is zero defects (relative to requirements).
Quality in manufacturing terms may be measured as the ratio of the number of good parts produced to the number of parts produced. How would you apply this to AV Systems work?
To AV systems Providers, it translates to the ratio of the Number of AV Systems Installed with no defects (no “punch-list”) divided by the Number of AV Systems Installed in a particular period. Hence, if ten AV Systems were provided by an AV company in a given year, and one of those systems had a punch list of defects, one could say that the AV company has a 90% Quality Rating.
When polling Technology Managers, their response to this inquiry would suggest average Quality Ratings from their vendors barely leaving 0%!!! They think any, indeed all, AV installations will have a punch list, and scoff at the possibility of it being otherwise.
What is the cost impact of this shocking reality? Few are tracking this “Cost of Poor Quality” and translating it in to dollars. This cost is usually hidden since the bulk of the costs are in hours (About a third of what we do in America is redoing work already done). Note that AQAV offers free spreadsheet calculators on its website to help a company put a number on the “Cost of Poor Quality”.
AV systems nearly always have defects while it is being developed, but AV9000 guides us in finding these defects so that they can be removed before the system is turned over to the client. The objective is to deliver a defect-free installation.
AV9000 makes “100% Quality” simple, but not easy. Indeed, it’s hard work. A company needs to clearly state its policy regarding Quality, apply leadership and discipline to define their processes that everyone will follow, have an organized training program, and make sure everyone is constantly focused on removing defects. There are a few exceptional AV companies that are 95% - plus in Quality for thei
r clients. Those exceptional companies enjoy the benefits of the dramatic efficiency and profits that quality yields, and better motivated employees that never want to leave.
If you are an AV Provider, what is your Quality Rating?
Buyers, what Quality Rating do you seek? Are you leading your vendors, through the language of your RFP’s, toward a higher Quality Rating by insisting all your vendors adhere to AV9000?
Feel the Pride! Find out more on www.aqav.org. Membership is free to Buyers.