By Gilberto Jimenez, Field Engineering Director

Emergency Quality Situations can be disastrous for a company both internally, by un-necessarily straining resources, and externally through delivering non-conforming product to customers.  On the brighter side, emergency quality situations are usually what kick-start companies to make the necessary changes to allow a company to grow and improve for future projects and new system implementations.

How do we mitigate loss and make sustainable improvements during an Emergency Quality Situation? SQA’s Emergency Quality Response Team (EQRT) has created a 5 Step Plan, which outlines how to identify problems and propose solutions and implementations, with appropriate follow up.

1. Define and Identify the Nature of the Problem: This is probably the hardest factor as sometimes the definition of the problem or emergency is not clear.  All other steps depend on a clear identification of the problem making this first step critical.  Write down a concise statement, which summarizes the problem, and then write down where you want to be after the problem has been resolved. At this stage you need to gather as much information as possible:  We suggest generally dividing the identification into two parts: Hard Data (facts, statistics, targets, time factors, history) and Soft Data (feelings, opinions, human factors, attitudes, frustrations, etc).
   
   Deliverable: A concise clearly defined statement of the problem/s causing the emergency.
   
   
2. Analyze the Problem in Detail:  At this stage, you should ask questions and gather as much information as possible. One common mistake is to assume you know what is causing the problem without an effort to fully investigate the problem you have defined. Sometimes as consultants we tend not to view the problem from a variety of viewpoints and just on how we perceive it.
   
   Deliverable: Clear analysis of the problem/s and root cause/s.
   
   
3. Identifying Possible Solutions: At this stage, you must be as creative as possible in applying as many techniques to investigate potential solutions such as: quality circles, focus groups and as many cross-functional teamwork activities as possible.  You can be amazed at what great feedback and solution people on production floor can provide.  One very important part of this step is that all the stakeholders are involved in this process of deciding what solution is optimum for the project.  The owner needs to feel ownership of the solution for it to work.
   
   Deliverable: List of implementable solutions that stakeholders are in full agreement is the right course of action.
   
   
4. Develop an Action Plan: This is a critical step to perform in order for a solution to get implemented. The action plan needs to be a chart that lists the tasks the need to be done and identifies who will be responsible for each one.  Each task needs to answer when?, what?, where? and how?
   
   Deliverable: Precise action plan detailing the exact steps and due dates at each stage of implementation.
   
   
5. Implement the Solution: We have seen from experience that sometimes the people who choose the solutions are different from the people who actually implement them. If this is the case, members who select the solution should clearly explain to the implementers why it was selected.  It is very important that the implementers have full buy-in on the solution. Furthermore, training should be made a vital part of the implementation plan. Post-implementation, there has to be a clear system to monitor, evaluate results, and implement contingency plans as needed.
   
   Deliverable: Sustainable implementation of the solution along with a plan to monitor the system after implementation.
   

Being on-demand, flexible, and experienced with many similar situations, SQA is an ideal resource for companies to use during an Emergency Quality Situation.