For all you folks out there who have implemented or are in the process of implementing Quality System Basics (QSB), we wanted to share best practices we’ve learned over the years. This blog is dedicated to that!

Quality Systems Basics (QSB) is NOT a set of individual strategies, but a system for managing operations. While you already have procedures and methods to make good product, QSB introduces some of the best practices General Motors (GM) has found that make it even more likely that your customers (including GM) will be satisfied. And important to you as a supplier, when your customers are consistently satisfied, your costs to achieve that level of quality will actually be reduced.

Also realize that even if the names of some of the 11 GM QSB strategies are different or new to you, you’re likely doing many of the QSB requirements already (e.g. standard operating procedures, product status identification, RPN reduction, supply chain management, etc.).

If you’re new to QSB, start with the strategy that will best help your company reduce costs or problems. Then grow your implementation from there. For many companies, Fast Response is a great starting point because is drives problem solving to the source of the problem; and it develops the discipline of root cause thinking and correcting workflow so that the problem at hand – and similar problems – can be prevented down the road.

So the discussion isn’t really why you have been asked to implement QSB, it’s really about how to best apply the methods and techniques within QSB to save your plant time and money.

We hope you’ll now see QSB in a different light!

Posted by Murray Sittsamer (murray@luminousgroup.com), The Luminous Group, strategic business partner to CEBOS. For more information on how CEBOS can help automate GM QSB requirements, click here.

For most of us, when it comes time to justify an expenditure, we don’t know where or how to even start such an arduous task! It just seems like it makes sense, why can’t management see this and sign off so we can get the project going? We all know that in reality, especially in the aftermath of the Great Recession, it’s not that simple. One trend that did emerge from the Great Recession and is likely here to stay, is the tightening of the corporate purchasing approval process. Nothing gets through without a good solid justification.

Having sold many quality management software solutions over the years, CEBOS has pulled together a short article to help you in justifying your quality management software automation project and put your organization on the path to best in class! We hope you enjoy the article. Please click here to view the article.