LAPP’s Global Quality team is made up of four colleagues from Lapp Holding AG in Stuttgart. “We want to inspire an enthusiasm for quality among all employees in the company – this motivation for quality awareness will be our key to success. Everyone needs to know that quality is at the heart of our work and absolutely essential in every area,” emphasises Georg Mittnacht. There are several approaches for ensuring the quality of production and service in the long term, and these were recently discussed at the first Global Quality Meeting in Poland. “We can offer quality, but we still have a lot to do”, says Mittnacht.
Looking for solutions instead of culprits
According to Georg Mittnacht, communication and collaboration between the divisions is an important element. Customer concerns must be addressed as quickly as possible. “Errors are completely normal. Instead of searching for culprits and pointing fingers at colleagues, we need to find solutions together”, explains Mittnacht. If a national subsidiary discovers an error, it is important to be transparent and inform colleagues in other countries. This will enable LAPP to work together and to overcome challenges more quickly together. Georg Mittnacht also knows how to get employees feeling enthusiastic about their everyday work. “We can motivate ourselves better and work more effectively if we praise each other for our solutions. This results in mistakes being dealt with together in teams instead of hidden away.”
Globally standardised processes
Another important approach for higher quality is process standardisation. One aim, for example, is to implement corporate directives in LAPP subsidiaries around the world in the same way or to carry out processes in logistics according to the same models. Responsibilities and processes must be clearly defined. The aim is not to ignore local methods, but to increase transparency and reduce coordination efforts. If work is done together, there is little risk of misunderstanding.
In addition, all processes must be digitalised. In this way, LAPP employees are networked with colleagues around the world and can process customer enquiries or arising issues more quickly and transparently. To strengthen international coordination, the existing local quality discussions are supported via monthly quality meetings at a global level. Employees from logistics or production can chat to their regional quality managers to advise on processes and products.
Our “zero errors” strategy
The team led by Georg Mittnacht has developed a comprehensive strategy for all these objectives. Prevention is an important cornerstone of the vision. This means that work is geared towards a zero-error philosophy. Georg Mittnacht: “Errors happen, but it’s important not to make the same errors twice and to work in an organised way so that they do not occur systematically. We thereby support one another and form a quality community in which we can empower ourselves for quality management.”
The strategy is based on four main objectives.
- When it comes to LAPP products and services, it is important to create globally uniform quality standards for their appearance. It can thereby be determined, for example, what would constitute a production fault on the cable as opposed to just a visual deviation that is still within scope. For example, what would constitute a production fault on the cable as opposed to just a visual deviation that is still within scope? One short-term aim is to reduce complaints by 50%.
- With regard to processes, the time required to process complaints is to be reduced and a structured business process management system is going to be established. In order to be more customer-oriented, responses to enquiries should be quick and helpful.
- By focusing on the industry, transparency will be created regarding the status of quality performance. Which national subsidiary may still need support? A digital reporting system is being created for this purpose.
- LAPP needs new technical solutions for complaints management. This is why the employees are working hard on training for preventive quality and are also setting up a system for on-site or virtual testing.
Quality project landscape
Customer complaints process improvement
LAPP is combining around 50 processes for customer complaints from different national subsidiaries and thus is developing a globally uniform process for remedying errors. To this end, a global team is being set up which will operate across countries and regions. This replaces the local teams that have previously communicated via an interface.
Prevention process improvement
In the future, LAPP will also be using a practical IT tool to replace local documentation. This enables LAPP to make the accumulated knowledge of its employees available to everyone, regardless of time and place, thereby creating greater transparency.