FREE online courses on Quality Improvement - Methodology for Quality Improvement

 

Quality improvement benefits will accumulate steadily, when an organization pursues quality improvement projects and activities in a consistent, disciplined series of steps based on data collection and analysis. Quality improvement process can be implemented through the following 8 steps:

 

• Involvement of the whole organization
• Initiation of quality improvement projects
• Investigation of possible causes
• Establishment of cause and effect relationship
• Preventive or corrective action
• Confirmation of the improvement
• Sustaining the gains
• Continuation of the improvement

 

Involvement of the whole organization

 

Quality improvement is a shared activity; it needs active involvement of all the members of the organization. When an organization is well motivated and managed for quality improvement, a number of quality improvement projects or activities of varied complexity will be continuously undertaken and implemented by all members, at all levels of the organization. Quality improvement projects and activities will become a normal part of everyone's work and will vary from those necessitating cross-functional or management teams, to those which will be selected and implemented by either individual members or teams.

 

A quality improvement project or activity usually starts with the recognition of an improvement opportunity.  This recognition can be based on measurement of quality losses (cost of poor quality) and/or competitive comparisons (benchmarks) against organizations recognized as best in class. Once defined, the quality improvement project progresses through a series of steps and is completed with the implementation of preventive or corrective actions, taken in the process in order to reach and maintain the new, improved level of performance.  As one set of quality improvement projects are completed, new quality improvement projects or activities are selected and implemented. For successful quality improvement, it is essential that all employees be involved in appropriate quality improvement projects.

 

Initiation of quality improvement projects or activities

 

All members of the organization are involved in initiating quality improvement projects or activities.  The need, scope and importance of a quality improvement project or activity should be clearly defined and demonstrated. The definition should include the relevant background and history, the associated quality losses and current status, if possible, expressed in specific, numerical terms.  A person or a team, including the team leader, should be assigned to the project or activity. It is necessary to establish an implementation schedule and allocate adequate resources.  Provisions should be made for periodic reviews of scope, schedule, resource allocation and progress.

 

Investigation of possible causes

 

The purpose of this step is to increase the understanding of the nature of the process to be improved by collection, validation and analysis of data.   Data collection should always be carried out according to a carefully constructed plan.  It is important to carry out the investigation of the possible causes with the utmost objectivity, without any pre conceptions of what the causes or preventive or corrective actions might be.  Decisions will then be based on facts.

 

Establishment of cause and effect relationships

 

There is always some cause of an effect, which has resulted in poor quality or a problem. The actual field data is analyzed to gain insight into the nature of the process to be improved and to formulate possible cause and effect relationships.  It is essential to distinguish between coincidence and cause and effect relationships. The relationships that appear to have a high degree of consistency with the data, need to be tested and confirmed, based on the new data collected, according to a carefully constructed plan.

 

Preventive or corrective actions

 

After cause and effect relationships are established, alternative proposals for preventive or corrective actions to address the cause should be developed and evaluated.  The members of the organization who will be involved in implementing these actions should examine advantages and disadvantages of each proposal. Quality improvement is realized only by taking appropriate corrective or preventive actions. Successful implementation depends on the cooperation of all those involved.

 

Confirmation of the improvement

 

After implementing preventive or corrective actions, appropriate data must be collected and analyzed to confirm that an improvement has been made.  The confirmatory data should be collected on the same basis as the data collected to investigate and establish cause and effect relationships.  Investigations also need to be made for side effects, either desirable or undesirable, that may have been introduced.

 

If, after preventive or corrective actions are taken, the undesirable results continue to occur at approximately the same frequency, as before, it will be necessary to redefine the quality improvement project and initiate the planning process with a new look.

 

Sustain the gains

 

After the quality improvement has been confirmed, it needs to be sustained.  This usually involves a change of specifications and/or operating or administrative procedures and practices, necessary education and training and making sure that these changes become an integral part of the job content of everyone concerned.  The improved process then needs to be controlled at the new level of performance.

 

Continuation of the improvement

 

If the desired improvement is obtained, new quality improvement projects or activities should be selected and implemented.  Since additional quality improvements are always possible, a quality improvement project or activity may be repeated based on new objectives.  It is advisable to set priorities and to assign time limits for each quality improvement project or activity.  Time limits should not constrain effective quality improvement activities.

 

The “Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle” is used for continuous quality improvement.