The document outlines seven tips for improving production quality and efficiency, emphasizing the importance of prioritizing quality over price. Key recommendations include continuous flaw detection, employee training, and integrating quality control within production roles. It stresses that a responsible and empowered workforce is essential for maintaining high standards in production.

1. 7 Tips to Avoid
Poor Quality
Production

2. Quality in production is the efficiency
with which you make your products or
provide your services. While the quality
of your products may be in superior in
your customer’s eyes, your profit
margin is the judge of your production
quality. Here are 7 tips to help increase
the quality of your production:

3. Too often the long term benefits of quality
are sacrificed for the short term benefits of
price. It is important to balance the long-
term value of what you get versus the price
you pay. This concept applies to everything
in your company from inventory to
employees.
1. Buy for quality first and price
second, not the other way around

4. High quality workmanship rarely ever fails
inspection. Most people try to resolve
problems after they are too big to be ignored.
The more practical approach and less
expensive approach is to develop
continuously evolving systems that looks at
solving problems at the source.
2. Continuously hunt for flaws
and fix them before they grow
into serious problems

5. Quality is everyone’s responsibility, not just
the responsibility of management or quality
control. Investments will come back to you
many times over.
3. Implement employee
education and training programs

6. Building responsibility for quality where it
should be directly into your production process
and into the hands of your production staff will
ensure that quality is a priority. If there are
separate positions for quality control, rotating
them will make it a higher priority.
4. Integrate accountability for
quality control into your
production positions

7. When people are empowered to make
decisions they take more responsibility for
their actions. A staff of caring, thinking
human beings needs to be at the helm of
your business.
5. Encourage and support
problem solving at all levels of
employment

8. Nothing will affect your quality levels more
than employees who care. You can
encourage this by openly demonstrating
your appreciation of a job well done and by
sharing success stories.
6. Encourage and reward pride
in workmanship

9. What is measured is managed. Looking
for ways to quantify the quality of you
production process will help you better
understand when you have improved. The
most important of these will become part
of your Key Performance Indicators.
7. Use statistics to analyze and
monitor your progress

10. Quality control should be integrated into
your production process rather than
something separate. When errors do occur
there is often an error in the process. Ask
yourself why a quality control problem
exists and keep asking the same question
about the answer and eventually the
problem will reveal itself.
To get to the route of a problem
keep repeating “why?”

11. A systems oriented
solution will cost less
than replacing
people...

12. Mark Wardell is President & Founder of Wardell
International , an advisory group that helps business
owners plan and execute the growth of their companies. The
author of seven business books, Mark also writes regularly
for several national & international business publications.
Email him at mark@wardell.biz.