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"Quality is a joint task."
KSB products have been known for their quality for a long time. Why do we need a quality campaign at KSB now?
The quality of our products and technologies is already very high. This reputation is the outcome of many departments’ commitment and hard work. Launching a quality campaign now is important to illustrate that quality is not only the responsibility of individual departments or divisions but a joint task involving everyone working at KSB. Our aim is to fully meet our customers’ expectations and establish ourselves as a leading supplier. To achieve this we want to establish a corporate culture in which quality is anchored in every action and in which every employee is aware of this responsibility. We want to create a culture in which KSB’s employees are enthusiastic about supporting improvement processes, are proud of their work and of being a valuable part of KSB. Because quality is a joint task. This will result in a high customer satisfaction, which benefits all of us in the end.
Your title is Corporate Quality Communications Manager. How are you planning to recreate communication on the topic of quality?
Communication is the key to creating awareness and changing culture. Our objective is to draw more attention to this topic and generate a common understanding of what defines quality. At the same time we also want to show KSB’s employees appreciation and make it known when someone contributed to enhancing KSB quality. An example would be writing an article about the contribution in order to thank this employee. Naturally, communication to the outside world will also be part of this campaign to advertise the KSB brand to our customers.
To enhance quality, quantifiable values are needed to see if improvements have been made. What values could you use for this purpose?
We are currently creating a strategic indicator for quality leadership. This metric is calculated based on many smaller, weighted indicators and will enable us to measure change over the next few years.
Most people working in quality management have got a technical qualification. You studied economic psychology. How does this influence the way you view this topic?
Quality is not only about the characteristics of products and processes but also about people and the organisation overall. If we want to generate a decisive competitive advantage, we will have to make a cultural change. My background is a very good match as economic psychology deals with the psychological processes behind economic actions. It allows me to look at it from a different angle, which may help advance this cultural change. Also, I have gained sufficient technical insight and knowledge in the last 17 years of working at KSB.
If we talked about this again in a year’s time, what would have changed at KSB?
By then, we would have hopefully taken the first step and created awareness as well as a common understanding of quality. Our aim is to anchor quality as a fundamental value and see it develop into a lived value rather than being perceived by employees as an obligation. This would be quite an achievement already. In the end, quality starts in the head — everything else will follow on from that.