According to the father of the quality movement, W. Edwards Deming, it’s imperative for companies to ensure they pay close attention to the overall quality of their product/service offers (Black, 2020). To ensure there’s quality, here’s an outline of Deming’s 14-points, that he says, “can lead to improved total quality management” if properly followed (Black, 2020).

Deming’s 14-Points

1. Create constancy of purpose for improvement of product and service.
2. Adopt the new philosophy.
3. Cease dependence on mass inspection.
4. End the practice of awarding business on price tag alone.
5. Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service.
6. Institute training.
7. Institute leadership.
8. Drive out fear.
9. Break down barriers between staff areas.
10. Eliminate slogans.
11. Eliminate numerical quotas.
12. Remove barriers to pride of workmanship.
13. Institute a vigorous program of education and retraining.
14. Take action to accomplish the transformation.

So, let’s take a look at each of the 14-Points using 3DR’s situation. 3DR is currently seeking to expand their operational efforts in a new market and need to identify ways they can ensure that their operational change management efforts are organized accordingly while maintaining quality assurance.

1. Create constancy of purpose for improvement of product and service. For 3DR, this could easily mean a top-down approach where leaders come together with everyone from the company and address the constance need to maintain high quality standards for product creation and dissemination.
2. Adopt the new philosophy. This can be used by leaders at 3DR in order to change the perception of internal employees based on old-school business practices. Sometimes it’s better to start with a fresh mindset and try new ways to conduct business opposed to leveraging old ways of doing business.
3. Cease dependence on mass inspection. It’s important for 3DR leaders to find a way to conduct iterative inspections before, during, and after production cycles to ensure problems are identified quickly and updated frequently.
4. End the practice of awarding business on price tag alone. 3DR has the opportunity to find creative ways to award their employees and fellow partners during the business process. This does not have to be done solely based on monetary contract-awards, etc.
5. Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service. 3DR can only reap the benefits of a lean systems if they decide to implement one from the top-down approach. A lean system requires and iterative (i.e. AGILE) business mindset.
6. Institute training. 3DR has an opportunity to institute a training solution for their internal employees to ensure everyone is on the same page during the phased expansion process to grow. Without top-level approval of a training plan, 3DR employees could easily blow the opportunity to learn something new off because it may be perceived that the training is not required. Leadership implementation can help influence mass-employee training to align everyone with future development goals.
7. Institute leadership. Although 3DR already has a good organizational structure in place to manage their teams and daily business operations, it would be wise to re-assess how the leadership program operates at the company level to identify areas for improvement(s).
8. Drive out fear. It’s only beneficial if 3DR leadership would consider creative ways to help drive out fear from their employees to ensure everyone is in the proper state-of-mind to perform at their highest levels to ensure quality is also high. It will be the leaderships responsibility to make sure that fear is not stopping their team’s ability to move forward and make progress with customer demands and most importantly, quality assurance.
9. Break down barriers between staff areas. Sometimes, sour internal relationships cause friction on daily business operations. In this case, it’s critical that 3DR leaders take notice of the relationship dynamics within their organization and break down barriers between staff areas that they feel could use some re-building. This will ensure everyone is working together to achieve quality.
10. Eliminate slogans. 3DR can use this technique by removing bad slogans from the workplace environment. People always like to make slogans about stuff but getting the job done is much more than just what you call it or categorize it by. Focus on production and stop worrying about naming things.
11. Eliminate numerical quotas. Perhaps focusing on something other than numbers from time to time will help 3DR create the best product for their customers.
12. Remove barriers to pride of workmanship. 3DR can offer employees incentives for completing individual portions of work. Most importantly, 3DR leadership can benefit it they focus on removing barriers that uniquely separate employees from each other. Instead, find ways to bring people together in a public forum and recognize those individuals with special talents in front of everyone to show acceptance and equal-equality standards.
13. Institute a vigorous program of education and retraining. As outlined in point 6, continue to develop your staff by re-training them on both old business practices and new ones for growth. 3DR would be required to monitor this via oversight in order to optimize its use.
14. Take action to accomplish the transformation. In order for 3DR to be successful with the implementation of a quality control program, they need to take MASSIVE ACTION.

References

AZQuotes. (2020). Edward Deming Quotes. https://www.azquotes.com/author/3858-W_Edwards_Deming

Black, K.  (2011).  Business Statistics: For Contemporary Decision Making. Wiley.  https://learning.oreilly.com/library/view/business-statistics-for/9781118213957/

Craft. (2020). 3D Robotics [3DR]. Craft.co. https://craft.co/3d-robotics