Does A Good Quality Management System equate to Compliance?
If it is written down, it must be followed. This means it must be correct… right?
Lack of compliance discussion triggers that I see often are:
- Defective products or services
- Audit findings
- Rework and scrap
So the next questions that I often ask when compliance is “apparent” are:
- Do these defects happen when standard, policies and administrative controls are in place and followed?
- What were the root causes for the audit findings?
- What were the root causes for the rework and scrap?
In a purely compliance driven company, I often here these answers:
- It was a complacency issue
- The employees were transferred…. Sometimes right out the door
- Employee was retrained and the other employees were reminded on why it is important to do the job as required.
So is compliance in itself a bad thing? No, but compliance to poor processes just means poor output always.
Should employees be able to question current standards, policies and administrative controls? Yes, at the proper time and in the right manner. Please note that in cases of emergencies and process work stop requests, that the time is mostly likely now.
What are some options to removing the blinders of pure compliance?
GOAL (Go Out And Look)
- Evaluate your training and make sure it matches the workers’ and the task’s needs at hand. Many compliance issues start with forcing policies downward with out GOAL from the bottom up.
- Don’t just check off the audit checklist fro compliance’s sake, GOAL
- Immerse yourself with people that share your belief to Do the Right thing, not just the written thing.
- Learn how to evaluate your own process without the pure Compliance Glasses on.
If you see yourself acting on the suggestions above, this would be a perfect Compliance Awareness Trigger to join us out our 2016 TapRooT® Summit week August 1-5 in San Antonio, Texas.
Go here to see the tracks and pre-summit sessions that combat the Compliance Barriers.
