Since decades studies verify that next to innovation the implementation of superior quality strategies leads to far better profitability than that of comparable businesses. However businesses often apply similar, cost-oriented, and static quality strategies.
By an evolutionary change of their quality strategy companies can make a difference, sometimes also by a leap towards a comprehensive, dynamic excellence strategy. Both requires know-how, one-time costs, and a quality controlling.
Some companies do not have an explicit quality strategy. Others apply a warranty strategy. Others add non-conformity costs of production. Others apply a more comprehensive, but rather static TQM or excellence strategy.
Quality of competition catches up or pulls ahead. Latest then the quality strategy has to be reviewed. Hence there is nothing like a static quality strategy or a final system of quality management.
All companies have to apply regulations on product liability, functional safety, and sustainability. However differentiation is feasible by credible increase of customer value, warranty, product quality, and service quality.
External quality services like CRM, supply, and after sales lead to customer satisfaction, customer retention, turnover, and margin. Internal services like training on-the-job on problem-solving by Statistical Engineering immediately improve quality and costs of products and processes.
Merging the production system (lean production) and the quality strategy into an excellence strategy offers additional chances for differentiation – instead of continuing them as two separate company initiatives. Also ramp-up quality, robustness against quality fall-offs, maintenance quality, constraint management of business processes, new technologies, building blocks, R&D quality, and sales quality can be included into a company wide excellence strategy.
A quality strategy has to be profitable. Hence a quality controlling coordinates the company-wide, profitable implementation of a quality strategy to achieve tangible results.