Adopting Zero Defects

Management must commit to zero defects. Zero defects requires a top down approach: The best-intentioned employees cannot provide zero defects if they are not given the tools to do so.

• When you decide that zero defects is the approach you want to take, recognize that it likely represents a significant change to the way people do things. Manage the introduction using the principles of change management.
  
  

• Understand what your customers expect in terms of quality. Design systems that support zero defects where it matters, but don't over-design if the end-user just doesn't care.
  
  
• Zero defects requires a proactive approach. If you wait for flaws to emerge you are too late.
  
  
• Create quality improvement teams. Zero defects must be integrated with the corporate culture. Zero defects needs to be accepted as "the ways things are done around here".
  
  
• Learn poka - yoke (POH-kay YOH-kay.) Invented in the 1960s by Shigeo Shingo of Japan, it translates to "prevent inadvertent mistakes". It's an approach that emphasizes designing systems that make defects almost impossible or, if they can't be avoided, easy to detect and address. To implement zero defects, you have to have strong systems in place.
  
  
• Monitor your progress. Build mechanisms into your systems and methods of operating that provide continuous feedback. This allows you act quickly when flaws do occur.
  
  
• Measure your quality efforts. It is important to express your progress in terms of the bottom line. Take baseline measurements so you understand the cost of defects in your organization, and can measure the benefits your achieveing in eliminating them.
  
  
• Build quality into your performance expectations. Encourage members of your team to think about how they can achieve zero defects, and reward them when they're successful.
  
  
• Recognize that although zero defects is a destination, circumstances keep changing. Monitor, evaluate, and adapt in a continuous, never-ending cycle.