Shortly after Walker Talk Volume 8 was printed, we found 15 printing defects: typos, misspellings, printing errors. What was really upsetting and embarrassing to me was that I had personally proofread the entire magazine before printing. After contacting the Walker Talk publisher, we quickly put a quality control plan in place for future issues.
The subject of quality would fill an ocean with books, seminars and specialists, but here are three simple observations:
- Quality is "a journey and not a destination." It is a never-ending effort to deliver the best possible quality to our customers. It is not some elusive point that is finally reached called perfect or zero defect. From the perspective of quality as a journey, a company is never satisfied with the status quo and never stops working for quality.
- Quality is a group effort built on individual responsibility. Quality-minded leadership may well set the direction, but it will be a group that delivers quality when the product is produced by the group (very few products or services are delivered as a solo act).
- Quality is carried out by individuals who say "l care" about giving full value to the customer. The best plan or organization won't deliver quality without people who care. In a lot of ways caring is more an issue of character than incentive.
Walker Manufacturing is quality minded in our leadership, but it is the quality coming from our employees, suppliers, distributors, dealers and end-customers that makes us look good.
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