(17 Feb ’08)
Ms. K, is so Quality-conscious that when she
had to scratch where it itched, she analysed the entire event. Who/what bit
her, what caused the itch, when did it happen (date and time meticulously
noted), where (part of body plus possible geographical location), could this
have been prevented, could it be prevented in future? Was there a smell? No?
Why not? … queries were addressed in the detailed narrative summary (saved as a
flow chart, and in excel. One never knew in what format who would want it
when). She had a management intern who did it as his project, so he could learn
‘on the job’. She designed an efficient
feedback system. The form minutely covered demographic information. 2000
candidates were covered, a good audit sample. One knew at a glance, how many
itchers belonged to Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Delhi, Goa, etc. It gave clothes
and food preferences of people, whether or not they itched. Good effort,
that.
To benefit everyone,
she gave a power point presentation. Shared knowledge, transparent
communication is the new mantra. She made it clear right at the beginning of
her talk that in Quality vocabulary, there was no such thing as an ‘almost
bitten’ situation. Either you’re bitten or you’re not bitten, assuming it
wasn’t a rash, for that would have meant an entirely different perspective, a
topic for another project.
She had graphs
comparing statistics of previous years which indicated increases of bites in
certain months. There were more bites on the hands and feet than on the arms
and thighs. Because she’s always wearing clothes. Might be common sense, but
she proved it quantitatively. Applause, applause. A pie-chart showed which
crawlies were involved: bees took a tiny sliver (a point raised and debated was
whether a bee sting counted as a ‘bite’), ants took up another sliver (that
apparently happened in the Company’s cafeteria; proof that we needed a new
caterer), a chunk belonged to bed-bugs (a high powered six-sigma study was
needed here), and three-fourths of the circle belonged to mosquitoes. We said,
“This really is good Quality stuff. We could sell it to the pharma companies
and make some money.” Enough material has been written and compiled on
mosquitoes, but not from the Quality point of view: cost implications of buying
body lotions and (wo)man hours lost in scratching, for example. The HR guys
made quick notes.
Engineering explained
politely to Purchase that the window-meshes must be of smaller dimensions.
Purchase turned to Accounts and said they mustn’t be so unkind (someone did say
‘tight-fisted’, but the rest hushed him up). Accounts cleared up some
misconceptions: they merely disbursed the money. It was Administration that
laid down the limits. Could we get on with the presentation, someone asked.
Ms. K. continued:
“Technology is the biggest driver for the Healthcare Industry. We have to focus
on market-oriented improvements; we have to be pro-active and invest in state
of the art equipment. If our patients get itchy, our CSI will suffer. We must
incorporate all this in our CGP…”
“What’s CGP?” someone
asked.
“Corporate Governance
Policies.”
“New abbreviation?”
“Shut up, idiot.”
The person withdrew,
hurt. This was no way of expressing an opinion.
Quality applied to words, tones, gestures, body language. He asked
another question: “What about mosquito nets? ”
Ms. K. retorted: “AIIMS
(Association of Itchery Institutes for Moneymaking Studies) has tied up with a
foreign investor to have the very first conference on nets that provide
tertiary level security to tier I patients in Grade A cities across Asia.
Unfortunately, there is objection from….”
“From?” someone
interrupted.
“Oh, FROM…. For Rights
of Mosquitoes…it’s an NGO…”
“NGOs interfere in
Quality processes.”
Ms. K. continued: “Systems is developing a
software to track itching habits of visitors to our company to understand the
leverage of the mosquito business. We could consider revenue generation by
starting specialty itch clinics. MRD has p-itched in and said they’d be able to
retrieve information from the archives on how many itchy patients were
admitted. We still don’t have statistics from the OPD and Healthcheck. Biomed
has been working on a machine that can show up itchy areas on a normal x-ray
machine. This information can be stored in our computers. Another software will
analyse the data. Next year’s capital budget will include it. We expect support
from Mosquitronics.”
Brainstorming followed
this session. Emails flew back and forth and there was a unanimous decision
that every itch, no matter how unimportant it may seem to the itcher, must be
documented carefully. The data would be collected and collated by Marketing
who’d sort it objectively. The results would be sent to the Quality Authorities
for unbiased perusal.
Ms. K. has been such an
inspiration. She has brought laurels to our institution and proved that nothing
is so small that it can’t be considered important in matters of Quality.
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