The inevitable transition to Quality 4.0
Talking about Quality and Quality Management in 2018 means addressing the theme of digitalization in industrial processes, also known as Industry 4.0. The increasingly frequent and effective connection between machines, humans, and data today leads to the democratization of technologies once reserved for a few specialized companies.
It also promotes the emergence of new technologies capable of transforming the reality we know, such as 3D printing.
These changes occur while Quality teams are still grappling with yesterday's problems, such as inefficiencies caused by fragmented and disconnected systems, manual calculation of key indicators, and difficulties in interconnecting quality-focused workgroups within the company and with suppliers, just to name a few.
The traditional approach, therefore, tied to the precise analysis and measurement of the quality of individual processes, is gradually losing effectiveness and giving way to a broader way of considering quality. This certainly increases the complexity of overall Quality management but also likely provides the only possible key to questions that Quality professionals have long asked to improve their discipline.
An example stands out: Supplier Quality Management
Supplier Quality Management is the dominant example where the new approach to Quality demonstrates its full potential. The use of Cloud Computing technologies to enable real-time collection of production data and their analysis via Big Data, as well as the use of intelligent technologies like Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, is changing how manufacturers and suppliers approach Quality. Manufacturers can identify potential quality issues before suppliers themselves, leading to clear advantages and savings throughout the production chain.
Quality 4.0 is a journey
Because Quality 4.0 relies on new technologies—both IT and production-related—but is not solely centered on them, we can define it as a journey in the evolution of IT use, business process management systems, and the Quality culture among personnel. Often, it's a journey that begins with small steps, such as updating a database management system to a new version or migrating it to the Cloud. Today's IT technologies make it possible to take great leaps with small changes in state and envision new horizons for our Quality journey towards the 4.0 realm.
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