Quality Management Systems for the Win

A quality management system (QMS) is a major part of many business’s. Without such a system, there is no way to formalize processes for documentation, procedures, and the various employee responsibility levels for achieve key outcomes derived from major objectives and policies on product quality. Quality and Standardization in the Modern Industrial Context. Quality become a term that was rocketed into the mainstream with guilds formed between craftsmen centuries ago. Since the industrial revolution, various quality control mechanisms have been discussed and implemented. This was to ensure consistent outcomes from products and processes. Over time, documentation of best practices that survived got passed down and repeated. These have evolved into the modern day QMS. As Western and Eastern firms competed for dominance in steel, oil, automobiles, and technology production, such processes became even more important. Benefits. The ISO 9001 safety standard is the go-to in the industry when describing these systems. And there are numerous benefits to such a system. They are as follows:

1. Regulations. There are a number of regulatory requirements that each firm must meet in order to remain successful. A QMS assists in clarifying and systematizing this process to ensure key components are in place to stay compliant.
2. Customers. Not only are there several key regulatory frameworks you must work within as a company, but there are also numerous customer demands. To meet these demands, a QMS system and competent manager are the right combination to ensure everyone does their part in this overall goal.
3. Improve Processes. Processes in business cannot stay stagnant if you are going to improve as a company. However, when they do it can be due to not having proper plans in place. A safety standard makes it so unnecessary actions are eliminated and no longer in the way of peak productivity.
4. Lessen Waste. The amount of waste produced in modern production practices can be absurd. With the right systems, you can track this waste and identify the core reasons that caused it to happen. Based on what the causal factors are, you can get rid of wasteful byproducts that harm the environment and bring you in front of regulatory commissions.
5. Keep Costs Under Control. As a QMS manager, you know the importance of keeping costs in check. This is why an ISO system is so crucial. It allows you a framework with which to analyze success or failure and adapt procedures and corporate policies accordingly.
6. Create and Recognize Training Potential. There are many key opportunities in your work force at any given point. Perhaps someone gets sick, has an emergency, or is promoted. Any number of personnel changes can require you to have trained staff in their place almost instantly. By having a system within which to conduct your training and identify opportunities, you can be prepared before disaster ever strikes in the first place.
7. Keep Staff Engaged. The engagement of your employees is one of the most important parts of running any business. When staff feel like they are a part of the conversation, they will perform better. This allows for increased production because they feel more invested in the process.
8. Aligning Meta-Organizational Focus. When you lose the forest for the trees, the organization as a whole is a loss. It is important to maintain a top overview of how everything operates in the company. From that perspective, you can make sweeping changes keeping the profits of the company in mind over individual employee needs or non-essential requests that you might be burdened with as a QMS manager.
9. Repeat Sales. When customers are happy, they come back to buy more. Proper processes and procedures in place help guarantee that your customer base is going to be repeat customers. Otherwise, each time you acquire a new customer you repeat the cost to obtain them, adding in more expenses and less revenue.
10. Time Savings.  With a proper QMS in place, you'll waste less time on the line and in the board room. Time is becoming the most valuable commodity of any company now today. As a manager, your job is save time wherever you can.
11. Competition. The competing producers in your space will be losing to you when you adopt rapid systems that allow you to dominate. By having a system and following it, you'll enjoy efficiency ratings and other aspects that the competition will simply not have.
12. Transportation. The transportation and logistics angle of physical products can prove to be a problem. However, it doesn't have to be. With proper planning you can avoid major costs usually associated with mass produced products.
13. Design. The design process has often been called one of the most painstaking and time consuming phases of development. Luckily, parameters actually inform this process. This allows you to cut down on needing to pay designers and put more back in the board and investor shares now and in the future.
14. Prototyping. Rapid prototyping is a massive advantage achieved from quality management systems. Not only can you send out ideas faster, you spend less money. The end result is a process of testing ideas in the market and iterating on the feedback before your other competitors can even send one idea to market.

Quality management systems like ISO 9001 exist to provide companies with opportunities to conduct their operations in better ways. By cutting down on risks, core productivity metrics can be met in a regulatory and customer oriented fashion. By executing such processes, managers can enjoy higher revenues and lower costs associated with their production process on all fronts throughout the company.