Anyone for quality?

摘要

Quality management is not just for people who make things. Tom Donaghy writes that QM is relevant in the public, service, and construction sectors as well as in manufacturing. As someone who spends a lot of time talking to all sorts of enterprises about quality management (QM) and software tools for the job, I believe it gives me a fairly unique and impartial insight into attitudes to QM in different industries. Some industries are eager beavers while others, two in particular, appear to have a relatively ambivalent approach to QM. At the risk of offending two entire sectors in one fell swoop, these are the construction, and meat industries. Needless to say, there are exceptions, and if you are outraged by this slur, you may be in one of them. Construction tends to equate quality management with health and safety regulatory compliance and not much else, and the meat business equates QM with filling in forms and paper. I'd be in big trouble if QM had nothing more than this to offer.