CIPD - Quality standards and approaches

HR practice

Originally issued March 2000; latest revision December 2006

This factsheet gives introductory guidance. It:

defines ‘quality’
explains why quality standards and approaches are relevant to HR professionals
outlines the major quality standards and techniques, including ISO 9000, the European Foundation for Quality Management, Total Quality Management (TQM), 5-S, and Six Sigma.
mentions awards for achieving quality standards.
includes the CIPD viewpoint.

What is quality?

When talking about products or services, people often use ‘quality’ to refer to excellence or perfection (‘It’s a Rolls Royce product’). But in business, it more accurately means the extent to which the product or service meets the defined requirements. Thus one would not expect the same level of service on a low cost airline as in first class on a conventional airline. But both may meet the very different requirements that have been set down by managers – in other words, they are fit for the purpose.

Thus a commonly accepted definition of quality is ‘the degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfils requirements’¹. Customers, moreover, whether members of the public or another organisation in a supply chain, want a consistent product which can be relied upon to meet these requirements. So quality is also about customer satisfaction – meeting customers' expectations.

Since the 1980s, quality has been seen as the factor distinguishing successful organisations from the unsuccessful. Many quality initiatives originated in Japan and arrived in Europe via the USA, and certification systems – most notably ISO 9000 – have evolved as recognised standards.

Why are quality standards and techniques relevant to personnel professionals?

The quality standard most immediately relevant to the personnel profession is Investors in People, which is the subject of a separate factsheet.

Go to our factsheet on Investors in People

However, other quality standards and approaches exist which also need to be understood by personnel professionals if they are to be seen as business partners: introducing quality improvements through them may involve (for example) training, team building, cultural change and changing working patterns. Or a personnel department may itself wish to go through a quality improvement programme.

The rest of this factsheet briefly describes existing standards and approaches, although those wishing to understand them fully will need to do a lot more reading.

ISO 9000

The ISO 9000 standards were introduced in 1987 by the Geneva-based International Organisation for Standardisation, and simplified in 2000. It was believed that if organisations could demonstrate that they were operating a quality system that met international standards, customers would gain greater confidence in the quality of products they purchased. ISO 9000 standards were based very much on standards developed by the British Standards Institution (BSI) and published in 1979 as the BS5750 series of standards.

ISO 9000 is based on eight management principles:

customer focus
leadership
involvement of people
process approach
system approach to management
continuous improvement
factual approach to decision making
mutually beneficial
supplier relationships.

The standards focus on process. They are a management control procedure and involve businesses documenting the processes of design, production and distribution to ensure that the quality of products and services meets the needs of customers. So they are about achieving conformance to pre-determined standards. They can apply as much to services as to manufacturing.

There are three major reasons for seeking certification under ISO 9000:

Pressure from customers, who might suggest that they will no longer do business unless the organisation achieves the standard
Internal motivation, to use an established framework for upgrading quality management systems.
And, of course, a combination of the above two reasons.

Although the overall standard is ISO 9000, certification is to the requirement standard ISO 9001:2000. To achieve it, an organisation needs to fully document its position with regard to quality assurance via a quality management system, with a quality manual – a document which sets out the organisation’s general quality policies and procedures, everything it does and every system that affects the quality of the finished product. For example, a manufacturer’s quality manual might specify (among other things):

particulars of drawings
tools to be used
sampling methods.

A service organisation’s manual might include:

response time criteria
service standards
customer complaints procedures.

Once the manual has been put together, training is needed for everyone in the organisation to understand the role of the manual and the benefits to be derived from the new system. People also need to be trained in the day-to-day processes of upgrading and improving procedures.

The final step in the ISO programme is an independent audit to see that the system is working as described in the quality manual and that it meets ISO 9000 requirements. In some respects, certification under ISO 9000 is similar to the process for achieving Investors in People.

The European Foundation for Quality Management’s (EFQM) Excellence Model and its European Quality Award

The EFQM has an Excellence Model, launched in 1992 and regularly updated, which is arguably wider and more demanding than ISO 9000. It has nine criteria:

leadership
policy and strategy
people
partnership and resources
processes
customer results
people results
society results
key performance results.

The Excellence Model is a tool to be used in a number of ways, as:

a tool for self-assessment
a way to benchmark with other organisations
a guide to identify areas for improvement
a basis for a common vocabulary and way of thinking
a structure for the organisation’s management system.

The Model recognises that there are many approaches to achieving sustainable excellence in all aspects of performance. Through self-assessment, it helps to measure where organisations are on the path to excellence; to understand the gaps; and then to stimulate solutions. The number of organisations using the Model is said to be growing rapidly and is estimated to exceed 20,000 across Europe, in the public and private sectors.

The European Quality Award is awarded annually to organisations judged to be exceptional, with finalists in several categories.

The British Quality Foundation (BQF) and its UK Business Excellence Award

The BQF uses the EFQM Excellence Model as the framework for assessing applications for its UK Business Excellence Award. But its website emphasises that ‘whilst Quality Awards are a focus for some users [of the Model], the true measure of the Excellence Model’s effectiveness is its widespread use as a management system and the associated growth in the key management discipline of organisational self-assessment’.

Other awards

There are quality awards elsewhere in the world: for example, the US Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award; the Japanese Deming Award; and the Japan Quality Award. The various criteria and approaches they use may be also useful in developing quality programmes.

Total Quality Management (TQM)

The world is becoming increasingly competitive. Organisations now seek to exceed customers’ expectations rather than merely meeting them, and TQM has emerged as a means of establishing quality enhancement. There is no single satisfactory definition, but it consists of the following features:

A means of fostering continuous and sustained improvement of all processes and systems.
A comprehensive, consistent, integrated, organisation-wide perspective involving everyone and everything.
Customer-focused, to meet customers’ expressed and implied requirements.

Essential elements of any TQM programme are:

continuous improvement (kaizen)
involvement of people
customer focus
use of qualitative methods like Statistical Process Control.

Commentators have suggested that although TQM is clearly much wider than ISO 9000, ISO 9000 can be a stepping stone towards TQM^2,3. However, others argue that the EFQM Excellence Model is a good framework for total quality and organisational excellence, because it is less abstract than TQM and defines and describes TQM in a way that can be more easily understood by senior management⁴. It can give a tangible pathway to TQM, with clearly defined requirements.

5-S

The concept of 5-S was developed in Japan in the early 1980s as the five principles to a total quality environment. The principles are seen as the basic requirement for high efficiency in producing better quality products and services with little or no waste, and are critical to the kaizen process. The motor manufacturer Toyota is perhaps the best known user of the 5-S principles. Five Japanese words make up the 5-Ss:

Seiri or organisation – separating the things that are necessary from those that are not
Seiton or neatness – how quickly one can get the things needed and how quickly they can be put away
Seiso or cleanliness
Seiketsu or standardisation – continually and repeatedly maintaining one’s organisation, its neatness and cleanliness
Shitsuke or discipline – creating a workplace with good habits.

Some authors have tried to render the 5-Ss into English as structurise, systematise, sanitise, standardise and self-discipline.
It is argued that there are many similarities between ISO 9000 and the 5-S principles, and that the 5-Ss provide a framework within which organisations can progress towards ISO 9000. Moreover, the integration of ISO 9001:2000 requirements with the 5-S would lead towards TQM⁵.

Six Sigma

Sigma is the letter in the Greek alphabet which statisticians use to denote standard deviation, the degree of exception (or variation from the average) in a group of outcomes, used to describe exceptions to an expected result. The measurement of standard deviation shows that rates of defects, or exceptions, are measurable. Six Sigma is the definition of outcomes that are as close as possible to perfection, because six standard deviations mean 3.4 defects per million, or 99.9997 per cent. Translated to a real situation, it would mean, for example, that an airline would lose only three or four pieces of luggage in one million. Measuring defects in this way enables organisations to strive for improvements to the highest possible level.

Thus Six Sigma uses data to drive towards improvement. It targets three main areas:

improving customer satisfaction
reducing cycle time
reducing defects.

Under Six Sigma, detail is central:

Every business function or process must be identified.
Core processes that add value for customers must be distinguished.
Specific customer requirements for each core process need to be obtained.
Metrics need to be developed and, from them, defects determined and solutions generated.

Proponents of Six Sigma argue that it is a system of management that seeks to achieve world-class performance. It requires championing from the very top, training to introduce theory and practice, teamwork to identify, analyse and solve problems, and commitment from all employees. Unless Six Sigma is fully embedded in the culture and practice of an organisation, it will not succeed. An organisation which has successfully introduced Six Sigma throughout its operations could be argued to have achieved TQM.

CIPD viewpoint

All the standards and approaches mentioned above can be valuable means of improving quality in a number of dimensions and clearly some, like Six Sigma, are more comprehensive than others. Like all corporate initiatives, each requires strong commitment from the top if it is to succeed. Introducing and maintaining them has implications and challenges for personnel practitioners in many areas, such as:

cultural change
leadership
developing involvement
teambuilding
training in technical, statistical and teamworking skills.

Useful contacts

British Standards Institution (for ISO 9000)
British Quality Foundation
Chartered Quality Institute
European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM)

References

TRICKER, R and SHERRING-LUCAS, B. (2001) ISO 9001: in brief. Oxford: Butterworth Heinemann.
COLEMAN, S and DOUGLAS, A. (2003) Where next for ISO 9000 companies? TQM Magazine. Vol 15, No 2. pp.88-92.
MAGD, H. and CURRY, A. (2003) ISO 9000 and TQM: are they complementary or contradictory to each other? TQM Magazine. Vol 15, No 4. pp244-256.
VAN DER WIELE et al, quoted in COLEMAN, S. and DOUGLAS, A. op cit
PHENG, L.S. (2001) Towards TQM: integrating Japanese 5-S principles with ISO 9001:2000 requirements. TQM Magazine. Vol 13, No 5. pp.334-340.

Quality standards and approaches