“Quality is Job One” was the mantra Ford put forth in the memorable 1980s advertising campaign, and improving quality still ranks number one on executive agendas at many manufacturing companies in nearly every industry. Delivering high quality products to the market is no longer a differentiator—it’s an imperative.

Yet, according to LNS Research’s most recent research spotlight, manufacturing companies have reached a plateau in their quality maturity and are struggling to address the challenges of changing global markets, increasingly stringent regulations, and disruptive technologies like the Industrial Internet of things (IIoT), and social media.

According to LNS, the solution is to better align investments with strategic objectives, especially those that target operational excellence. With quality at the top of executive lists, you’d expect a clear alignment with executive sponsorship for investing in quality management tools, processes, and personnel. Unfortunately, 87 percent of quality leaders identify their inability to improve operational excellence as a top challenge. Fortunately, Plex can help here with quality at the heart of the Plex Manufacturing Cloud, it becomes a focal point for operations and indeed enables quality to become a key contributor.

It used to be easy to justify quality investments. Simply point to the cost of poor quality (CoPQ)—or costs of scrap, customer rejections, or any unexpected cost. As manufacturing companies grow in complexity however, the return on investment (ROI) of CoPQ is harder and harder to calculate, and just as hard to sell internally. Despite the fact that quality in most companies is part of everyone’s job, LNS has found that gaining executive sponsorship for enterprise-wide investments has become a bottleneck for funding investments in increasing a company’s quality maturity.

A big part of the problem is having the necessary data that influencers can glean compelling insights and make smart decisions about investing in the cost of good quality (CoGQ). Only after a company has matured beyond manual, paper-based quality systems can it even begin to get a picture of the actual costs of delivering on customers’ quality expectations.

Plex customers have adopted and appreciated the “data-driven” approach to quality maturity, from all ends of the maturity spectrum. With Plex, accurate quality data collection is a matter or operational rigor and does not depend on manual collection or reporting. When users develop failure mode and effects analyses (FMEAs) and control plans, the values they enter into the fields become part of the database, not simply cells in a standalone spreadsheet. When the quality engineer develops check sheets, these sheets pull the inspection values directly from that same database, eliminating the chance of transposition errors. Since all inventory scans and inspection activities are recorded events, the quality department has actual data to record scrap or deviations and can contribute to CoGQ calculations.

The LNS report details the organizational challenges involved with gaining executive sponsorship and developing a compelling business case for a quality maturity program. It also provides valuable insight into how to move quality to the front of the line for business investments so you can keep quality first, last, and always job one.

Read the full report: Data Driven Quality Management: The Value of Achieving Quality Maturity. You’ll discover valuable tips on how to develop your business case for investing in quality maturity.

According to LNS, the solution is to better align investments with strategic objectives, especially those that target operational excellence. With quality at the top of executive lists, you’d expect a clear alignment with executive sponsorship for investing in quality management tools, processes, and personnel. Unfortunately, 87 percent of quality leaders identify their inability to improve operational excellence as a top challenge. Fortunately, Plex can help here with quality at the heart of the Plex Manufacturing Cloud, it becomes a focal point for operations and indeed enables quality to become a key contributor.