I recently able to speak with Juan Loera, quality manager at MasterTag, about the basic tools used to support advanced quality planning (AQP) and how to engage the organization so quality efforts meet customer needs.
Juan will be speaking on our free webinar on October 22 at 11:00 a.m. CDT: Advanced Quality Planning - How Far in Advance, and Who Should Join the Party
In your experience what aspect of AQP do most organizations struggle with?
Juan: The most common challenge of AQP is related to stakeholder engagement. Teams often struggle with capturing inputs from all stakeholders early in the process so all relevant needs are integrated into how the project plan is developed and executed. Though a structured process for stakeholder engagement may exist, it’s easy to overlook and engage all the appropriate team members at the right time.
What is the biggest benefit of AQP?
Juan: One of the key benefits of AQP is the ability to use a wide array of perspectives to mitigate surprises that lead to costly waste (e.g., redesign, rework, lost time, lags in delivery timing, and scrap). AQP uses cross-functional input and reviews to identify constraints, anticipate challenges, and plan ways to mitigate these risks early.
How do you get buy-in with senior management to use AQP?
Juan: Matching your business case with the pain points senior management cares about is always a good place to start. For example, use historical data on launches or projects that have gone wrong because they lacked a plan. In addition to the success or failure rate of these projects you should also include lost revenue or high costs that resulted from the lack of plan.
How do you integrate customer satisfaction and feedback into quality planning?
Juan: AQP stresses the importance of continuous improvement and setting up mechanisms to learn from previous projects. A lessons learned review is an integral part of the AQP process; any data or information collected from historical events that involved customer interaction are crucial to ensuring the voice of the customer has been established and is understood. The information captured in the lessons learned becomes a criterion to judge projects quality and progress and ensure outcomes are meeting customer expectations.
One of the tenets of AQP is designing within process capabilities. Do you have any advice for others on the best way to do this?
Juan: It’s important to clearly define the current technology or processes and understand their capabilities and constraints. This makes sure the project team takes these factors into consideration when planning the project or make adjustments to the plan to meet expected outcomes. If the project launch takes your team outside of the current process capabilities, there is a high probability that challenges will be encountered; which may be evident immediately or well after the launch of the project. This reinforces the need for cross-functional inputs during the planning phase to understand all relevant capabilities and avoid costly mistakes and surprises.
Join us for our October webinar to hear Juan discuss:
- the basic tools utilized in advanced quality planning.
- the dynamics as to who is included and when they are to be engaged.
- the benefits of engaging the methodology of advance quality planning (e.g., cross-functional communication, lower costs for launches by minimizing wastes, improved project management, and increased customer satisfaction).
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