What to know when establishing an in-company quality circle (Part 1)

If you want your employees to be more involved in decision-making and build your organization a culture of improvement, then creating Quality Control Circles (QCC) is a no-risks-solution to get started.

The concept of quality circle was initiated in Japan in the early 60s of the last century, from the Japanese efforts to improve the quality of products and services and build a corporate culture based on the Human-centered platform. The quality circle also lays the foundation for future Kaizen groups building.

A quality circle (QCC) is a group of workers who do the same or similar work, regularly having meetings to exchange, analyze and solve work related problems. Minimum group size is from 3 to maximum 12 members. The main task of the team is to monitor the quality of work to present to management or manager more effective solutions for improvement; If possible, employees can actively implement these solutions.

QCC should only be small groups, because large groups will have difficulty organizing meetings because it is difficult to gather enough members or control the content of the meeting. Some members who do not have the opportunity to comment will lose their excitement and the results are not high. However, if the group is too small, it will be more limited to give ideas as well as to solve problems. Many people may be discouraged by the amount of work they have to handle.

After the quality circles are in place, managers need to exercise empowerment so that these groups can operate on a self-governing model. For example, they can schedule themselves, assign workers to the task, monitor the quality of the work, and set goals. Groups promote engagement by assigning employees responsibility for day-to-day decisions related to their work. The quality circles can prepare employees for this type of structure by fostering the development of skills and knowledge.

One of the quality circle’s most important goals is to promote the collective spirit of its members. Team members working in the same department may have the same idea because they have to deal with common problems. This facilitates the selection of improvement topics for the group. Members should only deal with their own / departmental issues and should not “dig through the work of others”. This makes inter-regional relationships as well as within the same region develop better, and at the same time inspires workers to work.

(To be continued)

Productivity and Quality Office