World Quality Day

Tomorrow we celebrate the World Quality Day, so we decided to give you a little taste of what it means in general, but most important, what it means to us! One of the primary goals of FLM has always been to guarantee we deliver both services and products with maximum levels of quality. But in the end of the day, what does this mean exactly? Does quality mean the same for all clients, for everyone? Lets find out! 

It is possible to understand the term quality in several ways. In general, we can look at quality as the degree of excellence of "things"; the degree of conformity of the characteristics with the needs and requirements, the suitability for use and the design quality.

Its result can vary from area to area and its understanding from person to person, being susceptible and variable according to the focus we give. It can be focused on production, on the customer, on the product, on value or even being transcendent, in the sense that it cannot be defined.

"Quality is neither mind nor matter, but a third entity independent of the two, even though Quality cannot be defined, you know what it is." (R. M. Pirsig: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance).

One of the main objectives of quality is maximum customer satisfaction. It works as a differentiating factor and adds more value to products and / or services. The low quality of products and services causes loss of business, loyalty and productivity.

The probability of “non-quality” is equal to the quantity of activities and decisions that we make and carry out throughout the working day. Each of the components of each of the processes that, grouped, represent the organization, are an opportunity for “non-quality” (Crosby, 1979), that is, this is extremely high.

The question is - What can we do to prevent this “non-quality”?

The solution may vary depending on the understanding of the quality concept, meaning, the way in which quality is understood directly impacts my mechanisms to guarantee quality. If my quality objective is to fulfil the requirements stipulated for the product, then to avoid non-quality I must guarantee the conformity of my product / service with those requirements. 

One of the Quality gurus - Crosby - presents four fundamental principles of quality.

1. The first principle relates to the definition of quality based on conformity with requirements, and not as an inherent product.
2. The second principle of quality is prevention - it is important to identify from the outset what can go wrong or less well and to define actions that eliminate or reduce the risk of “non-quality”.
3. The third principle focuses on performance equal to zero defects.
4. And finally, we have the fourth principle that dictates that the measure of quality is the price of non-compliance.

Looking at this theory, FLM Têxtil created a system based on the norm of ISO9001: 2015, where processes, procedures and activities are defined so that the quality requirements for the product can be achieved in the product, or final result; as well as indicators of conformity of processes and products and services with pre-determined requirements.

The word proactivity assumes a fundamental role and, through the quality system, FLM Têxtil is able to identify risks and opportunities throughout the internal processes and in the market. Thus, it is able to define actions to reduce or eliminate the impacts of these risks. This is long-term thinking and not reacting to problems. This does not mean that the reactivity of the company ceases to exist, quite the contrary, whenever something happens that is not foreseen, it is necessary to try to resolve it promptly and effectively and, later on, reflect on actions to prevent a particular problem from recurring in the future.

Quality is a vision and responsibility shared by the entire organizational structure. Each employee is committed to the organizational objectives reflected in it, and has to contribute to the quality, improvement and evolution of the entire company, starting with his job position.

This investment is based on meeting the needs of our customers, always with maximum effectiveness and efficiency, always thinking about continuous improvement and the evolution of the relationship with our partners.

by Elisa Tinoco