During many years of quality auditing in airline and MRO environments, says Steven Bentley, it has become apparent that a well managed, effective Quality System will not just save the organisation money – it may one day save the organization.
A Quality System is Quality Control(QC) plus Quality Assurance (QA)
– QC being the delivery of theprocess and procedures required to demonstrate compliance and QA being the
delivery of the organisational product that complies with all regulatory and company requirements. This should be the lifeblood of any organisation, integrated into every facet of the company. When this is the case, organisations can excel in the delivery of the product or service and are well placed to react quickly and efficiently to any identified shortfall. In addition, an effective Quality System that follows the QC/QA 80/20 rule can deliver significant savings by reducing waste and inefficiencies.
However, many organisations develop what could be considered a bolt on, rather than an integrated solution, and are driven primarily by the need to satisfy the regulator that a compliant Quality System is implemented. This means they miss the opportunity to benefit from the savings which arise from a truly effective Quality System. Even though such a bolt on arrangement often complies with the minimum of regulatory requirements, it usually falls far short of a system that is fully supportive of, and provides tangible benefits for, the organisation.
Responsibility
Who is responsible for quality in an organisation? An answer that is often given is the Quality Manager. This is partially true, but is not correct – the Quality Manager is responsible for Quality Assurance but should not be responsible for Quality Control. There are actually two correct answers. Legally, the correct answer is the Accountable Manager, who signs a statement to the eff ect that he or she accepts responsibility for the organisation complying with not just quality, but also all safety requirements. the other answer is ‘we all are’, which means everyone within the organisation has a shared responsibility to ensure delivery of a quality product. This is an important message that must be communicated to the workforce in a meaningful and eff ective way – a challenge that also highlights the need for effective communication.
The Accountable Manager position is a serious and demanding role, and it is important that there is a strong and eff ective team of competent and knowledgeable post holders to back up quality assurance and safety management to ensure that quality and safety are, or become, fundamental attributes within the organisation. Safety is playing an increasingly important role and Safety Management Systems (SMS) are particularly important in an eff ective organisation. this is especially relevant with the need to demonstrate compliance with ICAO annex 6 Safety Management System requirements, which have become effective since January 2009.
For the delivery of an eff ective Quality and Safety Management System, the more information regarding the organisational compliance status that is available, the morefocused the decision making of those involved will be. However, compliance management becomes difficult without the availability of an electronic oversight system, as a huge amount of documentation needs to be managed. this includes: policies procedures and manuals, both internal and external; showing the status of conformity ona continuous basis; planning, scheduling and recording the performance of audits; developing an approved database of acceptedsuppliers, allowing for a range of audit options from postal audit to continuing oversight; and the engraftation of corrective actions (discrepancies) with an automatic follow up process for outstanding discrepancies.Where does the Quality Manager fit into thisstory? They are responsible for the delivery of an eff ective QA system. Interestingly, therehave been a great deal of regulatory requirements written on the responsibilitiesof the Quality Manager, and far fewer regarding the responsibilities of the post holders to deliver eff ective quality control.
Effective system
To deliver an effective quality system requires a fundamental understanding and a recognition of the differences between QA, QC and Safety Management, and someone who is responsible for delivering the various elements. The key to QC success is to set and manage the company standards, making regulatory compliance an easier goal to achieve. There are three steps to achieve this. The first is the management of the documentation to ensure the procedures are necessary, effective and efficient; the second, but just as important, is the understanding of these procedures by the workforce to include, where necessary, appropriate training; and the third is the management of competencies to ensure the staff are qualified, capable and, indeed, motivated to deliver the process required in an effective way. Unless the organisation has effective control of these elements, it is in effect fighting with one arm behind its back. It should also be accepted that to promote effective QC, the process and procedures must belong to the post holder or line manager, even though the Accountable Manager holds ultimate responsibility. This retains the independence of the audit, but, more importantly, ownership of the procedure is an intrinsic element of delivering effective quality control. The process is overseen by, and is usually delivered through, company controlled documentation manuals, forms and procedures, such as Ops Man Gen Part A, Maintenance Organisation Exposition and Continuing Airworthiness Maintenance Exposition. The role of QA is two-fold. As described, it is to demonstrate that the organisation complies with all regulatory requirements. However, there is a more fundamental role: to share with the post holders and the Accountable Manager the deviations within the system from the company processes and procedures, as well as discrepancies as a result of non-conformity with regulatory requirements.
Some people believe that up to 20% of profit is lost by airlines due to wastage and inefficient procedures. Identifying such shortfalls may not automatically be within the remit of the QA system because it may not necessarily fall foul of any company or regulatory requirements. So the company has to have mechanisms to bring together the QC process, the safety management process and to compare them with wastage, which could be late departures, ground damage, over fuelling or inefficient routeing. Considering that an effective Quality System consists of 80% QC and 20% QA, it is apparent that effective QC is an essential part of a successful Total Quality System (TQS).
TQS
There are three steps to build an effective TQS: capture data and process it in a way which identifies wasteful processes; use this data to drive efficient changes in procedures that will benefit the organisation; and use the Quality Audit System (QAS) to ensure that the organisation is following all processes and procedures correctly. This includes manpower that is sufficient, trained and has its competencies managed; processes and procedures that are documented, effective and relevant; and ensuring that all supporting facilities equipment or infrastructure are appropriately controlled and managed. For an efficient QAS, six small audits in a year will yield far better results than one big audit that might satisfy a regulator. Quality
findings are reported to the responsible person or post holder. This is necessary for the accomplishment of corrective action and to close the loop, but equally important is the measurement of the data to generate a corporate understanding of status and trends: without such data, it is very diffi cult for an organisation to develop eff ective change strategies. this can be accomplished through a monthly presentation of the quality status of the major fi ndings from the preceding month, the current outstanding issues, and the planned audits for next month; forming the essential elements of such a briefing should take no more than 20 minutes. The development of an eff ective QAS should: look at and ensure compliance with regulatory
requirements; look at and ensure the eff ective delivery of in-company processes; and frequently sample the product to ensure it meets company as well as regulatory standards. In addition, an eff ective QAS will carry out a significant proportion of surveillance to validate the quality system.
Integrating quality and safety Quality and safety are first cousins – sometimes the Quality Manager is also responsible for safety, in larger organisations a separate Safety Manager will be found. the role of the safety system is to assess risk and consider the severity of potential issues, and develop appropriate response strategies and to bring this to the attention of the Accountable Manager and post holders. The more data that is available to work with, the more effective the SMS system will be. The Quality System can supplement the data feed into the SMS system, but essentially it should be understood that the quality system is performing audits to ensure the organisation remains compliant with regulatory and company requirements, whereas the SMS system is required to proactively identify potential weak points in the organisational system. These diff erences should be clearly understood by all key individuals.
To bring it all together in an eff ective TQS, an organisation needs to ensure that there is a robust structure with clearly defi ned roles and responsibilities from senior management down. It is important to have clear, concise and appropriate procedures, which are understood by trained and competent staff with managed competencies, and a strong quality audit system to bring to the attention of senior management deviations not just from regulatory requirements, but from company procedures as well. There needs to be a process to measure organisational deficiencies and inefficiencies, and to use the company tools, including the Quality System, to gather the necessary data to analyse and understand the problems and to make appropriate changes within the organisation. Finally, we require a connected SMS system that sits alongside and complements the Quality System. Organisations able to bring this together truly benefi t from an integrated and eff ective Quality System.
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