India eu, Country in South Asia

Before I became a consultant and then an entrepreneur, in the 1980s, I was working as the head of an auto component manufacturing organization in Mumbai. My senior presented to me a 1979 seminal book of Philip B. Crosby, enticingly titled “Quality is Free.”Either because of our innate desire to get anything for free or because most of the people buy books as collection and have no time to read, this book sold millions of copies and to a great extent conveyed an unintended message that quality is free and you just have to grab it.But a cover-to-cover reading and understanding of the book conveys a different message altogether – quality is free but you have to work for it. Like in a hotel, breakfast is free, but you have to pay for the stay or Rs 5000 cash back, but you have to first buy a Rs 60,000 mobile or you have to pay for one T Shirt before you get one more free.But how come a well-respected and widely known Quality Guru like Crosby said that Quality is Free?This anomaly Crosby himself beautifully explained in one of his interviews. He said that he does not understand why Quality is viewed as an expense, a trade-off, something that you have to spend money on. Quality is conformance to carefully thought-out requirements. So, quality is free because it is already built-in. The expense of quality is nonconformance. In his exceptionally valuable book he had given several ideas as to how to make quality really free by working for it. And the book became Bhagavad-Gita of Quality Management.So, the question is do we build quality into the product by process or by inspection and rework which cost a hell a lot of money by making the product right first time and aim for Zero Defects (ZD).Hence, it is not the quality of the products that costs us but it is the UnQuality that costs.Another anomaly I see in organizational cultures across the spectrum is the top management thinks quality is responsibility of down the line. Nothing can be further from truth than this. It is difficult to assure quality at the source if leaders do not respect all associates. I have seen companies with people who do not feel comfortable reporting quality concerns at the gemba (shopfloor), because they are ignored or “punished” if they stop the line to report a problem. This creates an atmosphere of fear, and quality issues slip out of the door reaching the customer and creating a snowball of problems for everyone.On the other hand, I have seen examples of excellent companies that the management rewards associates every time they stop a production line to report a quality concern. Issues are addressed right away, leaders get involved and talk to associates, and everyone in the organization feels important and respected as a result. This certainly builds trust within the walls of the organization and helps assure quality at the source.Just as the best way to remain healthy is not doing anything that makes us unhealthy, best way to assure quality is not to do anything that leads to un-quality. This can be done by not accepting anything that is not of quality, by not producing anything that is not of quality and by not delivering anything that is not of quality.Many times, our conscience tells us we are not doing a quality job, but we silence our conscience by the deep-rooted chalta hi attitude.The only way to promote quality and kill unqualify is to adopt the theme of this year Quality Month November 2022 - Quality conscience: Doing the right thing – a way of life.Once we create this culture, we don’t do anything that is not up to the standard – whether we are watched or not.Then Quality becomes really Free. And that will make ‘Make In India’ great.

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