New Year – New Trends
What is in store for quality management in 2022
The expectations placed in a quality management system that is “at the pulse of time” and the commensurate tasks are increasing steadily. Quality Managers need to keep pace with the changed needs and trends in order to create the highest possible value for the organization.
Besides technical know-how, managing various interfaces - for example in such fields as environmental protection (keyword circular economy) or a certain degree of occupational health and safety and product safety - are becoming more and more important. Mastering and interpreting digital change and/or the data volumes that go hand in hand with this change are equally becoming increasingly important.
What does a quality management system thus need to look like in future? What requirements will have to be taken into account? And what trends are on the march?
One important factor in the development of quality management is that of the influence exerted by new technologies and vice versa. Digitization plays an important role in almost all societal and professional areas - this means it will also be a matter of course in tomorrow’s quality management.
“Unfortunately digitization in terms of quality issues is lagging behind that of other areas within companies, such as marketing or production,” says Mag. Dr. Anni Koubek, Executive Vice President Innovation, Business Development Certification Quality, Quality Austria. On the other hand, there are pioneers that are integrating data throughout the value added chain even now and thus can also improve their results.
“Digitization brings about a big change relating to the data volumes to be coped with by companies and the respective Quality Managers. The increasing interlinkage and interconnection between sensors, facilities and plants, products, processes and user data lead to data that is more numerous and complex and needs to be mastered and analyzed in a transparent manner and, in the best case, in an automated manner,” continues Anni Koubek. As the data volume of intelligent products is increasing, knowledge of usage, material flows and customer requirements is also growing. At the same time, such information technologies as the Internet of Things, Big Data or Artificial Intelligence force quality management to use new methods and adopt agile ways of working.
“All these developments and information derived from them, for their part, help to use advanced and progressive methods in quality management and quality assurance and to listen and respond to needs on the market even better.”
In order to help to get to the position to make it possible to actually make use of this large volume of data in a beneficial and profitable manner, it also is Quality Managers that need to make several important contributions. This starts with the following task that Quality Managers are so familiar with: that of modeling processes from which data comes for all important stakeholders within the organization as to make sure that meaningful and sensible “digital questions” can be put to the data flow. For this purpose, it will, in still another field of action, also be necessary to check the quality of information provided and, if necessary, take improvement measures in order to increase and secure information quality.
Last but not least, the output of predictive models, which are used at many places, also necessitates a high-quality “quality reality check” - no matter whether it is a question of “classical statistics” or the model of artificial intelligence: Just as fundamental understanding of the processes for providing products and services is and remains at the basis of meaningful and sensible interventions in connection with quality management in the analog world, fundamental understanding of the applications and algorithmic models will be part of the trademark of highly esteemed Quality Managers in digitized processes.
As far as “soft skills” are concerned, digitization also brings about changes. Working in virtual environments and teams will remain a determining factor even after the COVID 19 Pandemic! In this respect, Quality Managers need skills and capabilities in “digital leadership” so that they can design improvement projects efficiently and effectively. In addition, agility in quality management will become an important factor when it comes to meeting requirements that are changing rapidly and coming to terms with complex challenges.
Would you like to know more?
In this respect, you will find our brand-new product group “Digital Economy” - various seminars, trainings and workshops will provide you with any information helping you to become digitally fit!
Moreover, a comprehensive overview is provided by the Complete Course Quality Management Representative. Participants will be imparted comprehensive knowledge of topical issues and current affairs and will thus suitably be prepared for the new challenges.
Your contact persons
Team
Ms. Dr. Anni Koubek
Executive Vice President Innovation, Business Development Certification Quality
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