What relationship do the various functions and personnel in your organization have with your quality group? Is it collaborative, adversarial, or one of total domination? It can be a slippery slope that runs from successful to disastrous. Is your organization climbing or slipping?

Each time we make a choice to prioritize speed or urgency over correctness, we slip a little downward on the slope toward process-control disaster. I asked the question about your organization’s relationship with its quality group because I think that relationship is the indicator that best tells us where on the slope we might be. In my experience it’s better than defect metrics because the further down the slope we slip, the less reliable metrics become.

Organizations that lose profits and productivity due to scrap, failure to achieve on-time delivery, recalled product, poor customer satisfaction, lack of supply chain control, and/or other performance values tend to neglect the importance of doing things right and properly the first time. They lose sight of the importance of quality as a process value.

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