Most organizations face the challenge of successfully configuring their Quality organizations to deliver optimal performance, impact and efficiency in today's market. Increasing regulations and pressure for organizational cost reduction further compound this issue. Companies across various industries can use information uncovered in this study to benchmark and improve their performance in critical quality areas such as:
- Organizational Size and Management Structure- assesses size, structure, scope of service and roles & responsibilities of the Quality organization. Metrics covered include: organizational effectiveness ratings, corporate and non-corporate quality budgets, staffing levels (aggregate as well as segmented by manufacturing sites and total products).
- Risk Measurement and Management- addresses topics such as Quality audits and self-assessments as well as critical-to-quality factors unearthed through analyzing voice of the customer. This section includes executive insights on effectively developing and managing a formalized risk management process. Metrics include: combinations of regulatory/certification audits with quality audits, frequency of site and vendor audits and product recall/failure rates.
- Organizational Impact, Value and Performance- assesses financial impact of the Quality organization as well as performance management, measurement and value communication. Metrics include: percent of companies utilizing various quality tools and methods, quality cost savings and value communication tactic effectiveness ratings
- Lessons Learned- highlights the key challenges and insights uncovered by executives at benchmarked quality organizations.
One client was facing extraordinary attention from regulators, inspectors, stock analysts, and shareholders due to perceived and real shortcomings in the company's manufacturing quality. Our customer was looking for a mechanism to research and understand how the quality function was organized and staffed at top pharma companies. Issues such as structure, staffing levels at corporate and site, span of control, career path planning and retention, education levels and depth of experience in its quality people were of interest.
For this engagement, our research team conducted detailed surveys of top pharma companies to understand the exact staffing levels, distribution, education backgrounds and tenure in the quality role. Study participants also were interviewed to understand the organizational structure, assignment of responsibilities, lessons learned, and top influencers in maintaining a world-class quality system. Our research presented not only how our client stood with respect to others on the performance metrics, but also identified scores of detailed best practices in quality management.
This study was conducted on behalf of a global pharmaceutical company. Six highly regarded companies participated as benchmark partners. With our insights in hand, our client was well positioned to optimize its quality structure and organization, focus efforts on career development and retention of quality personnel, and fine-tune hiring and training efforts. In turn, our research has a direct bearing on product quality, expense management, and reputation enhancement.
Improve a process and generate more savings or revenue by learning how over 30 companies applied lean, six sigma and total quality management (TQM) methods and the results of these efforts. So you want to improve a process and generate more savings or revenue? This Best Practices Benchmarking Report offers a place to start by showcasing how over 30 companies applied lean, six sigma and total quality management (TQM) methods and the results of these efforts. In addition, the report contains over 20 slides illustrating and explaining results from a recent survey of 84 companies on recent projects using lean, six sigma and other productivity approaches.
At the August 2005 Global Benchmarking Council conference on "Trends in Lean, Six Sigma & Process Excellence: From Early Adopters to Agile Innovators," members, speakers and invited guests discussed how to restore balance in their Six Sigma deployment systems. This included debate about “tools for tools sake,” the cult of Six Sigma, Black Belt retention, and other issues critical to sustained success.