Early on you recognized the economic effect of shipping defective products to customers and/or providing inferior services. You countered this deficiency with elaborate inspection proceduresIn more recent times, you’ve focused on improving your organization’s processes and decreasing inspections. You have embraced continual improvement and implemented systems to prevent defects. You’ve gleaned and leaned your organization to reduce production-cycle times and respond to competitive demands for rapid order fulfillment and lower prices. You have recognized that employee satisfaction within a positive and progressive working environment translates into better customer satisfaction. You’ve correctly linked better training and support of self-development as a strong factor in retaining good employees, and furthering the goals and objectives of the organization. You’ve even begun to look at processes other than those directly pertaining to the delivery of products and services (e.g., marketing, product development, sales, supply-chain management, financially-oriented processes and processes relating to human resource management).

But, in your efforts to improve quality, have you looked at what your organization does to ensure the people you hire are people who can help attain your quality mission? If not, this could be the next frontier in your organization’s quest for quality.

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