What are the key principles underpinning quality management in operations?

Quality management in operations is underpinned by principles such as customer focus, leadership, engagement of people, process approach, improvement, evidence-based decision making, and relationship management.

The first principle, customer focus, is crucial as the primary aim of any business is to meet and exceed customer expectations. This involves understanding current and future customer needs, meeting customer requirements and striving to exceed customer expectations. It is about ensuring that all aspects of the company are focused on delivering quality to the customer.

Leadership is another key principle. Leaders at all levels establish unity of purpose and direction and create conditions in which people are engaged in achieving the organisation’s quality objectives. This involves setting a clear vision for the company's direction and standards, and ensuring that employees are motivated and aligned with these goals.

Engagement of people is a principle that recognises the importance of everyone in the organisation being competent, empowered and engaged in delivering value. Competent, empowered and engaged people throughout the organisation enhance its capability to create value.

The process approach is a principle that involves understanding activities as processes that link together and function as a system. This approach enables the organisation to control interrelated processes as a system thereby achieving its intended results with efficiency and consistency.

Improvement is a key principle of quality management. Successful organisations have an ongoing focus on improvement. Regularly looking at ways to make processes more efficient, reduce waste and improve customer satisfaction is a key part of a quality management approach.

Evidence-based decision making is another principle that ensures decisions are based on the analysis and evaluation of data and information. This helps to ensure that decisions are well informed, consistent, and lead to the desired results.

Finally, relationship management is a principle that recognises the importance of managing the organisation’s relationships with interested parties such as suppliers. Well managed relationships contribute to sustained success by optimising performance and the ability to create value.

In summary, these principles are all interconnected and when applied together, they enhance an organisation's ability to consistently provide products and services that meet customer requirements and aim to enhance customer satisfaction.