Cost-of-Quality: COQ is a relative term!

Components of the Cost-of-Quality in Kaizen parlance are as follows.

1/ Costs of external-failures incurred due to failures at customer's end.

2/ Costs of internal-failures incurred in order to handle failures at supplier's end.

3/ Costs of appraisal incurred in order to inspect/audit the adequacy and compliance of quality and quantity of work, and the workmanship as well, as per standards/procedures.

4/ Costs of prevention incurred in order to undertake improvement or failure-prevention activities (as preventative/proactive measures) & corresponding education/training for the same.

First two components are the 'cost-of-poor-quality' (CoPQ) that are incurred after failures. 

Last two components are the 'cost-of-good-quality' (CoGQ) or you can say 'investment' required to prevent a failures in the first place.

The components, rather it's terminology, is relative and hence the  term Cost-of-Quality itself is relative! Use of the components may depend upon the context of the situation.

Is the statement: "If the customer needs to administer incoming inspection on his inputs received from the supplier then that's typically the 'cost of appraisal'!", made by a participant in one of my sessions, 'true' or 'false', for instance?

The statement is 'false'!

It's actually the 'cost of prevention' for the customer. Because she wants to prevent defective inputs from going into the next process. Engaging into inspection activities on the customer's own processes or processing activities, although it's a NVA (non-value-activity or waste) however, is the 'cost of appraisal' for the customer in order to prevent the 'cost of internal failure' in the customer's processes.

Whereas the incoming inspection on his inputs may be is the 'cost of external failure' for the supplier. This is particularly so if the customer engages into 'inspection', a NVA (non-value-activity) 'forced' on to her by herself, because of lack of trust (past dissatisfaction) in the supplier's quality and hence in the supplier's brand image.

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder:

Do You Force Customers To Quit
In-a-problem ? No-problem! Dwell-a-while!
Customer or Custo-Mer ?  
Experienced A Delightful Payment ! 
An Experience of Heart-and-Soul 
Do you keep curing your brand ?  
A customer gets what s/he deserves: Shoddy Quality!  
Listen to iceberg of VOC to acquire customers 
Less With More And More Gets Sore 
Should one care for value ?  
Can-changing-thoughts-change-a-nation
Ridiculous Poison-culture versus Maverick Kaizen-culture 
Tolerate Once, Twice, Thrice?  
The Business Of Businesses 
That's how some business partnerships work 
Taken-For-Granted ? You Deserve It !! 
Strategise To Achieve Targets Daily 
Does recognition really matter 
That's How Morons Work
Simplicity Of Theory Of Relativity

Invisible Tension

"You have to pay penalty: Rupees Two Thousand.

Why Ma'am?

Because you didn't 'declare' that you had held a passport as a child.

Madam it's inadvertent. During last visit the other 'window' advised to make fresh application under 'reissue' category instead of 'renewal'.

Then go to that window", shouted the 'cashier' (window).

"Fine. I don't have cash right now. Do you have facility to pay on-line?

Don't waste my time...". The lady reacted with an angry sermon. She kept me waiting endlessly. At the closing hours she put some remarks on the application asking to come back on Monday.

Questions that remained unanswered were:

Has she put some adverse remarks on the application?
Are they going to accept the penalty in cash on Monday?
If they do, then what are the next steps?
How many days it'll take to get the passport?
If they don't, then what? And so on.

My son returned with these thoughts that kept bothering him until Monday.

In many situations, one gets preoccupied with such worrying thoughts primarily because of lack of visibility of "what next?"

Someone borrows money but doesn't observe commitment to repay. Nor does he bother to give visibility to when he'll repay. A case of shattering trust.

School authorities don't give visibility for admission process and deadlines and so on.

A standard advice under such circumstances is not to get preoccupied with worrying thoughts. But it's easier said than done.

Isn't there some responsibility (on us as suppliers) to our customers?

Can't we bring in visibility to our role in meeting expectations of the customer and a timeline to do so?

Or is it a strategy by design to give the customers sleepless nights by forcing her to guess "what next?"

If 'Yes', then for a criminal it might be fine. But otherwise it's a criminal behavior.

Experienced A Delightful Payment !

I was working for this company for the first time.

As usual I sent my diagnostic questionnaire: The tool that helps me in weeding out conn-enquiries. Conn-enquiries are the ones that call for the sake of calling followed by a call to visit them only to have a cup of tea.

Such conn-companies don't realise that primary raw 'material' for offering services is time. Material for product offering can be kept in inventory. Time can't be inventoried: Once gone, is gone for ever. That's why even a TV mechanic or a water-filter mechanic charges visit fees.

So if a company doesn't help you in diagnostics you are likely to end up being a 'pig'. 'Three-Pigs' was the name of my first company where I was one of the three with a mission to scavenge in industries.

If the company answers diagnostic queries, it's likely to be serious and your time is likely to go to the needy. Moreover your time gets saved. Because many a time companies call you to ask the same questions they could have been answered on phone or by mail. Why waste fuel, time and energy kind of questions hardly bother them.

The company I am writing about responded the next day.

Asked for the path-ahead for lean journey alongwith my quotation.

My office sent proforma invoice the next day.

The company sent me their 'supplier registration form' by return with a request to "comply by return". It was followed by a reminder mail saying "Waiting for your immediate reply."

The form was one of the most complete ones that included all the information such as whether my office was a brick or a RCC structure. My office sent back the form promptly duly filled in.

Same evening I got a call saying "Your 'supplier registration' is complete. Please ensure to get bill alongwith you. End of your counseling you will get cheque in your hand."  Communication was crisp and clear.

Deliciously delightful experience! First of it's kind for me!

May be the company had timebound performance criteria for their delivery processes. But I had seen many companies in spite of having such criteria failing to pay even after a couple of years.

A typical Indian company paid me half the amount overdue to me after half century of telephone calls and five times more emails. It wrote-off half, paid me half after two years. That means the money was depreciated by half due to inflation. I have not considered cost of follow-ups though which is actually a part of any Indian's routine.

I used to call my customer-friend every time Sachin Tendulkar used to hit half-century expecting the Sachin-fan's mood to be good, but in vain.

Some such company's performance criteria is to keep more amount in credit than debit. Their unwritten rule is to delay payment multiple times the agreed payment time. Former should overrule the latter or vice versa whichever worked out favorable to them.

This 'taking others for granted' is a typical behavior in high mistrust societies. Hopefully my delightful experience is not a mystery. Actually much more than the performance criteria, it's the culture: the soft dimension that makes the difference.

The delight company happens to be an Indian subsidiary of a Japanese company perhaps richer in the soft dimension: The Kaizen Culture!

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder:

WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling 

Make It Simpler, Rest Will Follow

How To Make A Difference 

An Experience of Heart-and-Soul

Take your career in fast lane!

Succession-Plans In Fast Lane!  

Nauseous Communication Gaps 

Do You Cleanup-After-Crisis 

Will It Work Here?  

You seem Reasonable if you appear Un-reasonable 

Can-changing-thoughts-change-a-nation

Ridiculous Poison-culture versus Maverick Kaizen-culture 

Tolerate Once, Twice, Thrice? 

That's how some business partnerships work 

Taken-For-Granted ? You Deserve It !! 

Customer or Custo-Mer?  

In a Problem?: No Problem ! Dwell A While !! 

Do You Ask Right Questions?  

Succession-Plans In Fast Lane!

How Much Can We Better Our Recruitment Processes?

In Order To Improve Knowledge, Skills, Attitudes, How Much To Add To Training Budgets That Are Already Heavy?

How Much To Better Our Succession-Plans?

These are some of the worries that keep haunting HR professionals. One reason is, increasing inventory of disgruntled employees. Employees disengaged due to job dis-satisfaction in particular in spite of having good systems in place. Other reason is attrition.

How to overcome this?
What is the solution to this dilemma?
How to reduce or prevent attrition?

Sometimes the causes might be aptitudinal. Sometimes it may be due to gaps in matchmaking at recruitment stage itself due to misleading presentations by either of the stakeholders.

It ultimately results into recruiting people and then figuring out how to fit square peg into round hole in order to accommodate them. Failure to do so results into branding them as defocused if they stay disengaged or as not-trust-worthy job-hopper if they quit jobs.

Hereunder might be a simple way to find out whether passions and aspirations of prospective recruits match that of a company's needs. HR professionals and companies might like to drive following steps to ease their worries.

Step-1: Prospects, both the recruiters and recruitees, need to look for matchmaking of mutual passions. Read blogpost that answers How To Take your career in fast lane!

Step-2: Prospective recruitees write their comprehension about thoughts expressed in the blogpost in maximum 50-words!

Step-3: Prospects write briefly about their own passions: Maximum 50-words!

Step-4: HR professional (assessor and selector) from recruiting company studies above 100-words in order to draw parallels. Based on the parallels s/he draws her conclusion on matchcmaking of passions and aspirations between the prospects and the company.

The findings might be given an appropriate weightage alongwith that of various other available criteria for recruitment.

In support of the above process, the recruiting company might like to design a few prompting questions that the recruitee answers.

Better the matchcmaking of passions and aspirations, better will be the mutual choices of recruits and companies, lesser will be the disengagement and better will be the Succession-Plans!

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder:

Take your career in fast lane!

Do You Ask Right Questions? 

Do you exercise your choice meaningfully

Overworked? Tension? CPU of the mind hung-up?

Prevention: The Best Cure! ... Is it really so?

Do you know a Best-Career-Plan 

Don't Forget: Stir-Coffee-Well !

Strategise To Achieve Targets Daily

Listen To The Iceberg, Not The Tip 

Nauseous Communication Gaps

An Experience of Heart-and-Soul

Taken-For-Granted ? You Deserve It !!

Be Bug-Be Or Big-Be ?

How To Make A Difference

Beware Of Political-Presentations

Smart-Moron Who Breaks Your Glass

I am a miser!
Fool for others but unconventionally miser or a maverick for myself!!

Who is an unconventional-miser?: The one who follows principles of MISER: Minimize-Improvise-Simplify-Eliminate or Reduce waste. 

In fact my family members have borrowed MISER philosophy from me like a cuckoo brought up in a crow's nest would do. 

In order to REDUCE WASTE, the other day my wife got broken-strap-set of her slipper replaced instead of throwing it away. Actually only left-side-strap from the pair was broken. So she wanted to bring the right-side one back for future use as a backup and thereby REDUCE WASTE further on.

But the over-smart cobbler didn't give her any chance to implement her good intention. May be he wished to protect national pride from her 'miser' attitude. Before even she could complete her request, he chopped off both-side straps in split-second saying it would have otherwise damaged slot in the slipper had he tried to pull it off.

If he could insert new strap in the slot he could have easily removed the old one from it. Naturally because it was a rubber slipper with rubber-strap made of flexible material. Upto my engineering studies I couldn't afford any other footwear than a low-end slipper. So having done similar excercise not less than 100-times, I could have done what the cobbler was supposed to do perhaps more skillfully. 

What is the learning?

This is a case of breaking window-glass and then suggesting to replace it without bothering costs of it to the country's economy. Some businesses do use such a strategy of local-optimization. They take things and people for granted including the country. 

This is no different than staff of an inefficient municipality not bothering about quality of roads that forces wasteful activities such as that of rubbing (puncturing) tyres of vehicles and breaking backs of travellers. In fact, the cobbler behaved indifferently to a complaint made to him later on having realized that he had put two different sizes of straps (number '7' and '8' as can be seen in picture): A quality defect. 

This is what happens in a high-mistrust society where moron suppliers thrive upon number games instead of global-optimization for the larger good.

This is what happens where people-in-power (leaders themselves) discard things as 'old' although they are in good form and fit (aesthetically and functionlly). There 'pride'and 'ego' doesn't allow them to use things 'used' by their predecessors. 

Anyway, that's about what others can do. As a lesson learnt, I have decided to choose (rather bank upon) my childhood skills next time. In generic terms: To do mistake-proofing instead of trusting non-trustworthy morons to get near-perfect service.

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder: Please do consider leaving a comment or sharing this post.

Make It Simpler, Rest Will Follow 
How To Make A Difference 
Big-Be Or Bug-Be ! 
Treat Root-causes, Not Symptoms ! 
Nauseous Communication Gaps 
Do You Cleanup-After-Crisis 
Raam or Krishna-Shyam: Tell me Hey Raam! 
Will It Work Here?  
Some Moron ! Some Great !!! 
That's How Morons Work 
You seem Reasonable if you appear Un-reasonable 
Smart-Moron Who Breaks Your Glass  
WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling 
Suggestions On-Sale, None-To-Buy 
Can-changing-thoughts-change-a-nation
Ridiculous Poison-culture versus Maverick Kaizen-culture 
Tolerate Once, Twice, Thrice? 
That's how some business partnerships work 
Taken-For-Granted ? You Deserve It !! 
Technology in-place, security dis-placed
IQ-EQ-or-SQ: What-is-more-important?
Do you know a Best-Career-Plan 
Customer or Custo-Mer?  
Experienced A Delightful Payment ! 
An Experience of Heart-and-Soul 
Less With More And More Gets Sore 
Should one care for value?  
ABCD of India Shining
Beware Of Political-Presentations 
Do You Cleanup-After-Crisis 
Hoarders Of Filthy Hoardings