Improving Customer Experience with Zero Defects
In the 1980s, Motorola took the business world by storm when it launched the Six Sigma technology that saved billions for them. However, the Japanese were still beating them in their own game by using similar technologies from before. This experience proved to Motorola and the world that implementing quality control technology in the production process from the word go had already ceased to be a luxury and had become a necessity.
Today, it is non-negotiable.
The Concept of Zero Defects
Though the concept of Zero Defects has been controversially claimed to be utopian, it is inherently the focus on the process of reducing the number of defects that aids companies in their production journey. Six Sigma technology defines Zero Defects as 3.4 defects per million products or services rendered and promotes a four-pronged approach – to measure, analyze, improve, and control. In the same way, the Zero Defects concept aims to eliminate wastage in a project. Implementing a comprehensive quality management system from the planning stage itself enables you to understand the change that is being sought, plan the change well, implement the process without error, and communicate the change properly to eliminate ambiguity. In other words, you get it right the first time.
Importance of Zero Defects
Achieving Zero Defects is vital to improve customer experience. Today, technology is an enabler of competition. With increasing competition, the only edge that you can aim for is to meet and exceed customer expectations to claim their loyalty. This is where the Zero Defects approach can bolster your project, simultaneously reducing waste, warranty cost, and resource consumption. Now Zero Defects is not a new concept. It has been around since Phil Crosby’s team from Martin Company created a zero-defect missile for the Army in the 1960s. What is important is the understanding that achieving Zero Defects is not the goal, but the journey.
Customer Experience and Zero Defects
Faulty products and services can ruin customer experience and that has the biggest impact on business. Defects in your offering can affect the customer in many ways, from wasting their resources, bringing them physical harm, to causing them inconvenience. Moreover, such a ruined experience causes damage to your reputation and goodwill. In the current times, the customer is spoilt for choice and will stay with you only until you provide the highest quality of experience.
To ensure that customers keep trusting your brand, you must reduce or eliminate defects in your offerings.
One of the ways to do this is to carefully control quality during the manufacturing or planning process, thus ensuring that every offering meets all safety and quality standards before being up for consumption.
Yet another method is to pay attention to and address customer grievances by introducing changes in the offering, focusing on continuous quality improvement. Acknowledging customer feedback makes them feel heard and valued.
The Role of Quality Management Systems in Achieving Zero Defects
The journey to achieve Zero Defects is essentially a journey of zero compromises with quality. Hence a robust quality management system (QMS) is inherent to it. A QMS will detect and prevent defects in your project to deliver the finest offering.
With Industry 4.0, the current trend is to completely digitize the interaction between all components of the production process, and this includes the QMS. The entire process of setting quality standards, testing products and services, defect rectification, and continuous quality monitoring aimed at achieving Zero Defect Identified (ZDI) has now moved on to AI and ML technology.
The focus of the QMS is on the three P’s – Prevent, Predict, and Prescribe. Following this approach ensures that you are one step ahead, identifying defects and preventing them from being repeated, predicting and correcting all potential and current anomalies, and, maintaining checks and balances to keep the entire project in line with the set quality standards of achieving ZDI.
An AI-powered and automated QMS in keeping with Quality 4.0 standards would work on the principle of:
- Bringing together the relevant tools and resources that would help reach ZDI
- Making the cost of quality and growth exclusive to each other
- Being proactive, instead of reactive
- Taking an objective approach instead of a subjective one
This is exactly what Quality360 does for you and your company. It automates the entire quality management process and provides you with analytics, live data, and reports while eliminating unpredictability. No matter which sector, this industry-agnostic AI-powered solution brings holistic quality management to your project, acting as an enabler for achieving Zero Defects, and saving valuable resources.
To know more about the product and understand how it can benefit you, visit https://www.3frameslab.com/quality360