Quality can be built into the products and services of organization by making it a part of professionalism and commitment of employees. Once this is realized by employees as part of their responsibility, this principle can lead to significant increase in revenues and collections for the organization along with job satisfaction, for the employees.
The framework provided by KPIs gives an altogether new understanding of quality and that of performance levels. The changes this approach brings are more concentrated and directed for attaining goals and objectives. Using this concept, the areas require attention can be immediately deciphered and worked upon.
Some of the KPIs that can add to the efforts of improving Quality in the processes are the ones related to Quality Maintenance, Quality Ingredient, Internal Processes Assessment and Training and Continuous Learning. Quality Maintenance comprises of KPIs like % products that confirm to the pre-decided guidelines, % processes with 'Best Practices', etc. Quality Ingredient Perspective includes KPIs such as number of quality measures in line with industrial measures, % of inputs according to the standards, etc. Internal Process assessment consists of KPIs such as number of procedures to share skills, number of quality improvement concepts used, % of total processes that need 'Improvement Measures', etc. and lastly, Training and Continuous learning includes KPIs in the form of % employee who participate in quality enhancing acts, number of training hours, etc.
The foremost hurdle lies in bringing this concept in the day-to-day working of employees. One can improvise on quality using technological solutions only to a certain extent. Further, it is the case of how well do the people employed get the importance of improving quality. This in turn is possible when the organizational culture is 'Quality-Oriented'. Such a culture, if propagated will go into ensuring that the outcomes of processes confirm to the standards and benchmarks that have been set. Last but not the least, figuring out the processes that are more into adding quality to the output has to be done meticulously.
KPIs are a 'Performance Measurement and Management' tool. In reference to Quality Improvement Process, the concept helps in monitoring the level of quality of the output. This can be done by attempting to attain the pre-set target values. Deviations from these can be noted and then minimized. The process should be well tailored in the way the organization works so that the newly introduced concept is not viewed as something in isolation. One should structure a BSC, after a deep study of the business house and industry. This examination will help it in knowing the processes that require some form of revising. Those domains will be more incorporated and kept a check on.
Quality Improvement does not mean strengthening the position on a marginal basis. Rather, it has to be worked upon in a continuous manner. This calls for the implementation of a system to follow the improvement process at every stage. Balanced Scorecard can be employed to achieve this. With indicators that reflect the progress being made in the desired direction, proceedings can be evaluated and procedures for their betterment can be undertaken.