Category Archives: Quality Stuff

All matters related to Quality Management, Quality Improvement and Quality Assurance

Reflections of a PhD student

16 Wednesday Jan 2019

Posted by in Purely Academic, Quality Stuff

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Fifteen minutes ago I sent my final thesis (pre-examination) to the editor. All eight chapters consolidated into one document with abstract, table of contents, dedication, acknowledgements etc. etc.  After this it goes for examination. It’s another milestone on the journey.

Pause.

I finally finished the corrections to my final draft and finally got the thumbs up from my supervisor.  Every postgrad student will agree, it feels like a really painful experience. I pray that I will always be kinder that needed to my own postgrad students because heaven knows – I understand that sting.

Making corrections is painful because as a student, arguably you always present the best work that you can at that moment in time. Then your supervisor comes along and says “this” or “that” was not good enough. Even if you not precious about you work – when you’ve done the best you can, then you can’t yet see the “better way” yet. So manoeuvring out of the dark spot just ain’t that easy.  It ain’t.

It’s not making the changes per say that is difficult – it’s figuring out how to change it. When you don’t yet know how to do something, then you just don’t yet. Nine times out of ten when you reflect then you realise it wasn’t such a huge task but still. I guess that’s what growth is.

img_0993Enough on that. I’m thankful that I’ve gotten to the 18k mark of this half marathon journey (if I can equate a PhD to a half marathon). I can’t actually see the finish line yet, but I know it’s around the corner. I can hear the sound of noisy crowd and music playing in the distance…

Funny… yesterday a friend suggested we meet for lunch, so that I can tell him about my PhD findings. Instinctively I immediately replied “Hay Naah. Uh Uh …When we meet we can talk about ANYTHING but Quality Culture and Operational Excellence” – and yet I know in my heart that I am completely passionate about anything related to quality! Quality management, quality tools, quality strategies, planning, analytics and especially quality culture. But right now I’m just saturated.

My reaction took me completely  by surprise.

I have a feeling that it’s a phase and it will pass. For now I just need some a little bit of breathing space.

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The Home Stretch

02 Friday Nov 2018

Posted by in General, Purely Academic, Quality Stuff

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19:40 Log entry: In reality I know there is still a fair amount of work to be done. From previous experience (my own M and that of my students), I know that even if you have completed the draft of your thesis, there could potentially still be plenty of revisions that need to take place – from either your supervisor or God forbid even from your examiner if they find major issues with your work! Then there’s the bibliography and annexures, an abstract 😱 and table of contents….. wara wara wara fish cakes!

However, right now it feels to me like I can almost smell it and touch it. My spidey-sense is tingling. That is, being done with this blerrie PhD. I’ve been really dedicated – like today – every time I considered taking a break I think “you almost there, just keep at it“. And my bottom is literally numb from sitting on it today. The other work that I have to do is busy piling up in my inbox and I imagesknow that I have to still get there sometime.  Eventually I’ll have to finish all my tasks, but tonight I want to finish chapter seven.

My brain is not firing at it’s peak right now, after sitting for most of the day – but I don’t care. I want to friggin finish….

Then I’ll be done with:

Chapter 1 – Scope of my research (ticked off)

Chapter 2 – History of Operational Excellence (OpEx) and the theories on culture (that has an impact on OpEx) (ticked off)

Chapter 3 – Regulation that affects OpEx and strategies to achieve OpEx (ticked off)

Chapter 4 – An international case study looking at OpEx in Japan, Europe and the United States (ticked off)

Chapter 5 – Research Methodology (ticked off)

Chapter 6 – Data analysis (quantitative data obtained from a survey sent to South African pharmaceutical manufacturers) (also ticked off)

Chapter 7 – OpEx model development and optimisation of the model using interview data from selected South African quality managers in the pharmaceutical industry ..I have three more paragraphs to go to tick off Chapter 7…….

(I’ll put out all the bonfires that are currently running rampant, (raging just tad short of out of control around me) because I’m just not looking in that direction, in the course of next week. And  then I will start Chapter 8 where I just write a conclusion on all my findings – and friggin kill that too!)

I can smell it, I can hear it, I can feel it….

To be able to train again, go for morning runs after dropping the minions at school. To call my friends and say let’s braai tonight, or let’s go to movies, hell let’s have a jacuzzi party. To not have to sit working on a Friday night and to be able to sleep late on a Sunday morning in the same weekend…

Ke Nako is almost here

22:40 Log entry: DONE!

 

#ComingSoon

21 Saturday Oct 2017

Posted by in General, My Adventures, Quality Stuff

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IMG_3203

Quality Rocks! Super stoked about a new idea I have. Been toying around with doing a vlog post (video blog) as opposed to a text post (web log or ordinary blog post) for a little while. The tricky thing was to identify something interesting but also relevant to my blog. So in a ***cough cough*** business meeting / teambuilding dinner I had with my Bespoke Business Services partners last night, they gracefully conceded to do the vlog with me.

For those who don’t know, I am a business partner in a quality consultancy called Bespoke Business Services. We started the venture 4 years ago, with the idea of consulting with organisations in terms of their quality management system – whether it be implementing a new quality management system (QMS) or improving on the existing QMS or presenting training in quality management. There is always room for improvement.

A quick background is my business partners and I met when we were classmates studying toward a degree in quality. During the years we were students, we became really good friends. Our ‘classmates clique’ is actually comprised of six of us. After graduation, of the six of us class friends, Hein, Shaun and I decided to start a company. I am really proud to have these two amazing business partners. Between the two of them, there is an absolute wealth of quality management experience. Shaun is a walking encyclopaedia of everything related to quality management, and in addition to Hein’s in-depth knowledge of auditing and quality management systems, he is by far the greatest trouble shooter in the world. They are the unchallenged Kings of Creative, Sustainable and Streamlined Quality Solutions. If you spend time around them, you clearly see and understand that effortless quality management is not really that difficult. In most cases, it just requires a change of perspective more than anything else.

Some people ask “Who needs quality anyway?” or state “Not required in my world!” or “It’s just extra and unnecessary work“. Interestingly, I believe at Bespoke, we do not even feel the need to counter such opinions whatsoever. Everyone who has those ideas of quality will either eventually come around when they get tired of making repeated mistakes that affect the bottom line of their organisation, so in other cases ignorance is bliss, – they’ll continue believing the above, and never see proper ROI for their effort.

For others who are able to recognise the value of quality in an organisation though, if you get to spend time with Hein and Shaun, a new insight opens. As serious or even boring as quality management might at first appear to be at first, it’s magical watching them work. Like sparks igniting a fire. A passion for quality that is contagious. And the best… you will end up seeing that doing things right first time round, designing your system properly first time pays off. Not only good for your wallet, but good for your reputation and renders a good sense of winning…. Who doesn’t like to be the winner? and winning is fun!

Yeah quality is flipping super awesome rocking cool. Yeah… Watch this space. I’m very excited that guys agreed to do the Quality vlog which will be coming soon, ….and knowing Hein and Shaunie, who knows what other adventures they might sneak into the vlog too!

My 10 of the Best

28 Monday Dec 2015

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I’m missing my children terribly. It’s really difficult to even find the words to express my feelings. And after trying all sorts of different ways to deal with my longing for them, eventually tonight I just started working again. Early start to the New Year, why not.

So inspired by my brother’s blog posts with all his 10 of the best lists, I have decided that I need to produce a 10 of the best list too! So I’ve been munching and crunching and pondering and then I got it! 10 of the best tips for writing SOPs baby!

And of course I’m personally motivated to blog about this because I managed the SOP matrix at the pharma company that I consulted for. Badly written SOPs wastes everyone’s time. It wasted my time as the person who supports the writer, the SOP reviewer’s time and the time of the end user- the reader who is supposed to ultimately make use the SOP. Wasted time costs money!

A well planned and written SOP should be the tool one can use at 2am when no one else is around. Interestingly though, not so long ago someone countered this statement I made, by saying that ‘someone cannot perform a task if they not signed off as competent’. On paper yes. I don’t really feel the need to counter his counter…..all I’ll sheepishly add is in a perfect world yes, and we do stay in a perfect world…. don’t we? Of course we do.

So here goes:

#1: The most common misunderstanding I came across – A SOP is a process, not a policy. If you can’t flowchart it, then it does not belong in a document entitled SOP.

#2: The person who performs the work/task being detailed in the SOP, must draft the SOP. The most useless SOPs I’ve come across were written by a person in the company who wrote that SOP just for the sake of getting the SOP in place (usually to pass an audit!). It’s an absolute waste of time and resources to have a valueless SOP. I promise you, it will confuse someone along the line. It only degrades your quality system – does not improve it. Ironic really, it’s just not “quality”.

#3: Train, and train, and re-train and re-fresher train your people to write SOPs. That’s an investment worth gold. Training an organisations’ employees is empowering them – this includes SOP writing. There is nothing difficult or complicated about writing SOPs, yet many people are ‘put off’ by it. I can only assume it’s because they haven’t been properly trained. Writing a good SOP that can repeatedly be used to train others to do a different task, makes work easier for the writer of that SOP in the long run. An additional advantage, is the organisation becomes less dependent on tacit knowledge.

#4: Use plain language. Write for the end user, and remember that nine times out of ten, that end user person is a trainee.

#5: Use active language. An SOP is written to describe an action! It is perfectly ok, no…. it is a requirement that it sounds like an instruction. The procedural steps are not mere suggestions. The SOP is written to describe a set of actions that must be performed.

#6: Embrace white space. This tip is influenced by my editing experience. Some white space in an instructional or informative text makes the text easier to digest.

#7: Standardise all the SOPs in your organisation. Readers in your organisation will get used to the standard format and will find it really beneficial. Your SOPs will be easier to understand for end users. This is very important. Variation is the enemy of quality – do not let variation creep in with your SOPs.

#8: Keep it simple. If you can get away with a simple flowchart with responsibilities and timelines, then do that. Use tables if you can, bullet points and numbered lists. Of course you do all of this while being mindful of your standardised format and other regulatory requirements your organisation might have.

#9: Test drive every SOP before it becomes active. Strange but true, there are simple steps that the writer forgets about because it’s second nature to that person. It’s a very good idea to get someone who is unfamiliar with the procedure to read it for logical and understanding, and with the person who wrote the SOP, perform the function. Doing this save you from having to revise a recently activated SOP due to a simple oversight.

#10: Jason, you are the King of 10 of the best lists, because I can sincerely seriously could only come up with 9 above!

 

 

 

Measuring Operational Excellence

15 Sunday Nov 2015

Posted by in Quality Stuff

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Is your QMS part of your business strategy? If I’m 100% honest with myself I would have to say I’ve heard that question a thousand times before, but I guess it’s just the way the world works… sometimes the penny drops and sometimes it doesn’t. Clang klink klink. For me, this time it did. It took place in 3 Moves.

Over the past year if you asked me to name the top reason why Lean and Six Sigma implementations failed in organisations I would have rattled off without missing a beat, “It’s because they not aligned with strategy”. It makes logical sense.

But what the heck the practical part of aligning your quality initiatives with your business strategy actually entailed doing, was beyond my grasp until a few days ago. In a workshop on the new ISO9001:2015 it started making sense when one of my fellow workshop attendees (a Risk Manager) said a way to measure risk is to look at your company objectives and consider the risk associated to those objectives. Up until that point, I’ve only been able to “see” or recognise risks associated to individual processes. I wasn’t able to understand what macro level “business risks” were, and what they had to do with quality.

The Objectives are the key. More specifically, “getting in the way of your objectives” was key, Thank you Simon. That was Move 1.

Then Move 2 was later when the workshop presenter hammered the point, “The main purpose of a QMS is to help the company make a profit”. “It is Not the customer is king” he added, “but it is make a profit first and satisfy your customer while you doing that!” and then he asked “Are your business objectives the same as your QMS objectives?” Kachow!

The distinguishing characteristic of the new version ISO9001:2015 is the new Clause 4 which takes a closer look at the context of your organisation. This means that to a certain degree you are not only allowed to, but you must appropriately tailor the requirements of the standard during implementation to suit the needs of your organisation. There’s no place for the one size fits all quick and dirty sales pitches that certain certification consultations took advantage of. The days of making a quick buck off someone who didn’t really understand quality but wanted a quality stamp of approval will hopefully soon be gone.

And finally Move 3, happened while shampooing my hair in the shower this morning with good old Pantene for damaged and dry hair.

Excellence is not a skill, it is an attitude - Ralph Marston

Excellence is not a skill, it is an attitude – Ralph Marston

So after my last consultation with Prof regarding my D. Tech research I knew I was gonna have to figure out a way to measure Operational Excellence. That’s what our counterparts in the research group in Europe are doing. I once came across an Aristotle quote which said “We are what we repeatedly do, therefore excellence is not an act, it is a habit”. I whole-heartedly agree with that sentiment.

With that in mind, would meeting SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) objectives time and time after time after time…..would that be excellence? I think so. The critical thing is to set proper objectives. Business objectives that are also simultaneous your quality objectives. And put quality systems in place to meet and exceed these objectives time after time after time. Keeping in mind, an objective is not stagnant. Periodically you have to raise the bar, update the objectives to give your business the competitive edge. Keeping a record of how you met these objectives….would that be measuring operational excellence?

Paddington on Top

06 Sunday Sep 2015

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Calling all cards, Calling all cards, Calling all cards. My brothers will agree that we siblings probably still need counselling to deal with hearing ‘those words’ or that saying, but that’s a blog entry for another day. Tonight I’m blogging about the past two weeks that have been choc-a-block full!

This week is varsity holiday, so strictly speaking I don’t need to go to campus at all. Beauty of an academic job. However, I signed up for a tutorial course that I’m attending tomorrow…Frankly I’m not sure why I volunteer for these courses. Well ….that’s not completely true – I do know that I volunteer because I have a insatiable desire to learn, so I grab any opportunity that arises that can potentially offer me additional knowledge. But what I really don’t know is why in heavens name I sign up for EVERYTHING, even when I suspect it might be too much. Another thing I probably need counselling for!

Be that as it may, I thrive on a busy schedule. So like, since my last blog these are the highlights:

SAATCA Auditing conference in PTA was amazing. Did you know that a Quality Manual will no longer be mandatory with the new ISO9001:2015? Like really! OMW. After attending the conference and getting a feel for the new standards, I’m completely loving it already. There’s a clause (Clause 4) on Context of Organisation. That’s just so practical. Also, the fact that one now needs to think about risk in everything your organisation does is in my opinion definitely a great improvement.

Got back from PTA and the students wrote exams. I’m still marking but I think they did quite well in general. That is unusual for midterm exams. Traditionally the student hash it – big time. Hey, but I’m happy that so far it’s looking so fine.

I read the novel “Gone Girl” by Gillian Flynn – and what a mind job that book was! Finished it in 2 days. I can’t decide if I love it or hate it.

Then I finished my proposal corrections – WHoooop WHOOOP! gave them to Prof! Moving forward. I wanna get on with this doctorate thing. Want to start doing my doctoral research already and be a doctor already. However besides the corrections, I had a very interesting meeting with one of Prof’s friends. His colleague from a University in Austria. On my Prof’s recommendation we had a discussion about my proposal and it turns out this Austrian Prof’s student is doing something similar. Interesting indeed. Prof Hilmer and Prof Moll then met the day after my meeting and there are a couple of options that they discussed – ways for us to collaborate. I’m not going to say any more on the topic except #watch this space 🙂

Lastly my side line research continues. So I’m sure everyone who has chatted to me recently knows that I really, really want to be a Professor. So first I must become a doctor, and after that I must do research and I must publish. With this motivation (besides the fact that I am genuinely curious), I am doing research on Blackboard – where it all started last year. Initially I was only going to gather data from the lecturers, however my students encountered problems and I decided to ask the students to help gather data on Blackboard from a student perspective as well. The incentive for them is that they can use this data for their own semester projects. But of course the benefit for me is I will use the student data in conjunction with the lecturer data and write a more comprehensive report on the usefulness of Blackboard. I’m very excited about this project – I have a suspicion that this is just going to be a pilot study of a more in-depth research project. Just thinking about it gets me excited.

For the lecturers’ data I used Google Forms to conduct a survey. What an amazing tool! Google annoys me mostly, just because they monopolise everything. However, Google Forms is the niftiest coolest toy that I have discovered in months. It comes with my greatest recommendation. It is easy to use and totally worth the time you need to spend learning to use it. You’ll find it in the Google suite in Google Drive.

Finally, I want to tell you about a treasure I discovered in my office. A book. When I moved into my new office, I inherited four bookshelves of books. What a treat! So last week Tuesday I was rearranging some of the books to make space for my personal collection of text books. That was when I came across an rather unusual hard cover. It is covered in peach coloured material and didn’t have a name in the front or back. But it had a name on the spine – Paddington on Top. Yep, as in Paddington Bear. This children’s story book is older than what I am. I opened the thick yellowish pages and I just got goose bumps all over. There are illustrations in the book. Beautiful pictures. I simply love it! My heart melted. A classic. I have no idea how that ended up in the office I inherited from Russel and Prof Moll, but clearly neither of them cared too much about Paddington. I decided to take Paddington home though, and it will now have a permanent place on the minion’s book shelf. Yes indeed, a much better home for The bear called Paddington.

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Exhaustarated and Exciterated

11 Tuesday Aug 2015

Posted by in Purely Academic, Quality Stuff

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Ridiculous words that I just made up now, but all for good reason.

Exhaustarated because I stayed up till 2:30 this morning finishing the preparation and PowerPoint presentation for a workshop that I am presenting on Research Design and Methodology on Saturday. I desperately wanted to just finish it, so I just kept chipping at it.

I literally couldn’t bear to shut the PC down at about 11pm last night when I thought I was almost done, so I continued and before I knew it, it was already 2:30. I am really happy with the finished product:) So so very happy. No, I am completely stoked, thrilled AMPED and so in my noppies dude.

Exciterated because I compared “Putting a research project together” to a visit to “Build-a-Bear”. Like the Build-a-Bear shop, all the elements are available to select from. It is up to the owner of the research project/bear to select those element that best suit them/the project. I took my daughter to Build-a-Bear for her birthday a few years ago and she designed her own teddy bear from scratch. First choose its fur, then she stuffed it, then put a stuffed heart in it, then clothed it and was issued a birth certificate for Princess Sarah.

Many of us do the same for our research, don’t we? Like Micaiah’s ‘Princess Sarah’, my ‘Lean Six Sigma Approach to the Selenium Analysis Process’ was a personal exercise……Uhmmm gosh. Did I just type that? eyes rolling – Maybe I need a life, as I typed that I felt sorry for myself.

Anyway, Still, research tickles my fancy. I’ve include three activities in the workshop – two individual reflective activities and one group activity. All I need to do now is find a few articles on data collection methodologies for the students to examine in the group activity. And also of course make arrangements for a flip chart, some coloured markers and some tea and cookies for the tea break. Fun up ahead.

I hope it goes well. I’m having this workshop with B. Tech students but it’s equally relevant to M. Tech students. So if it goes well, this workshop will be a pilot for a M. Tech workshop. The spin-off effect for me is the more I present on research design and facilitate sessions on it, the more familiar I become with a broad range of research concepts. Learning is amazing! I love it, love it, love it!

If anyone wants a copy, inbox me!  sharing is caring…..

The only thing that’s certain is that nothing is certain

23 Saturday May 2015

Posted by in Purely Academic, Quality Stuff

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1:30 AM on Saturday morning I’m up working. Marking stats projects actually, feeling so so about it. I really would like to be finishing up my proposal, but need to complete this admin task first so I can upload a progress mark for my students. But admin is Oh So Boring, so I’m blogging instead.

So an update on the proposal is yet another change has come about. Prof told me that I need to substantiate why I want to study the Impact of Quality Culture on Quality Management Practice in the four pre-selected areas that I had in mind, namely Productivity, Compliance, Risk Management and IT (he also told me to refer to IT as systems). So he suggests, “just find a way to tie it together, google the terms in one line and see what comes up” and so I did.

And a repetitive concept that came up was GRC, or Governance, Risk and Compliance. Now that’s something! It’s something because those are buzz words that I’ve heard bandied around at company that I consult for. And I have an inkling that industry is jumping onto that band wagon. I could be wrong…but I’m gonna go with my gut instinct on this one. I’m modifying my focus areas to Governance, Risk, Compliance and Systems… The only thing that’s certain is that nothing is certain.

Then just on a consulting note, I love my job – I really do. I completely love going to work in the Quality Department. And the scope of the work I do is stimulating and fascinating. It’s a thrilling experience to see how the Quality Management System comes to life before my eyes. There’s just lots of work we still need to do, but the real bonus is I am part of an amazing team. My only issue is I sometimes really feel I waste time when I battle to find something because of my limited experience. That is the downside of working on a system that still needs a great deal of development. I find myself being asked to do tasks, and work on systems where nothing existed before. Many times it’s a critical requirement, eg. Supplier Approval, and it is not anyone’s job yet. Another two looming in the pipeline is Risk Management and Self Inspections. Daunting and challenging, I feel incredibly stupid and excited at the same time. In the land of the blind I guess the guy with one eye is king. I guess that’s what systems engineering is all about.

The Misrepresentation of Quality

05 Tuesday May 2015

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I fell in love in 2009, and it was unlike any other time I’ve ever fallen in love before or after that. He wasn’t tall and he wasn’t handsome and he didn’t have sparkling blue eyes or a strong jaw line… in fact it wasn’t even a ‘he’. See, I feel in love with Quality.

The idea, the concept of Quality. When designed properly, Quality makes things better. What’s more, Quality is not only Compliance, and Compliance is certainly not necessarily Quality at all.

Compliance means we all dance in the same line (or to the same tune), ticking a checklist to meet a regulatory standard, such as cGMP. But there are several other standards available depending on any company’s need. ISO 9001, SANNAS or ISO 17025 (Laboratories), ISO 14001 (Environment Management Systems) or ISO 18000 (Occupational Health and Safety) – the list goes on and on and on. A different flavour for every different preference – For every industry and every workplace there is a standard or set of regulations that apply. We don’t give thought to our customer requirements. I mean, who needs customers anyway… right?

To my despair in all the places where I have worked in the past, I have observed organisations conform to the Standard for the sake of pure compliance. Quality is just an after-thought, or perhaps just a label consisting of 7 letters, used to brand compliance. Incredibly sad…, incredibly sad indeed.

It’s sad for me because I have bought into the process approach. Process approach can be diagrammatic represented by: INPUT →PROCESS → OUTPUT

I believe that everything, absolutely everything we all do at work (and even home) can be simplified and explained as simple process. Making a cup of coffee is a process – let’s see…

Step 1 – fill the kettle with water

Step 2 – plug kettle in and switch on

Step 3 – take your mug out etc etc etc

The first day I had too much sugar, the second day I realised I could have brushed my teeth in the time the water was boiling. By evaluating process steps, and sticking to the process steps… I slowly improved the process, until by the end of the week I was making best morning cuppa in the shortest period of time – All because I put some thought into it! Mornings are crazy, we just don’t have extra time for anything in the morning. And little quality improvements do not have to be difficult. I systematically approached it and just ensured I followed through with application.

The process approach is just one element of Quality. But it’s in the foundation of a strong Quality Culture. That being said I want to highlight that I could have the most amazing process in place to manufacture life jackets (as an example)…if you have cement as a input, I could not care how good your process is, I certainly wont be buying my life jacket from you!

Ok so enough for now, I’ve just scratched the surface of what I would call Quality Culture…. we’ll explore a little about Compliance next time I blog about Quality Matters

later alligator