Inside Out Quality
Inside Out Quality
Speaking of Quality...Quality Assurance Contributing to the Bottom Line with Bart Bosch
Earlier this year, I began searching for a Quality Assurance motivational speaker. This search introduced me to many amazing people; Bart Bosch is one of them. Bart is the founder of Vlitix and specializes in utilizing quality systems as a value driver for organizations.
If you want to turn Quality Assurance into a value driver for your company, this is your episode! Listen in as Bart and I discuss how quality can make your company more valuable and contribute to the bottom line.
To reach out to Bart, his email is bart@vlitix.com
https://www.vlitix.com/
Hi, I'm Aaron Harmon.
Leslie Cooper:And I'm Leslie Cooper. Welcome to Inside Out quality.
Aaron Harmon:Leslie and I are quality nerds. We like to figure out what can go wrong and how it can be prevented. Cap is our our friend. How can we use quality to build better safer products? Can quality be a tool entrepreneurs use for success?
Leslie Cooper:On this podcast we talked to some fascinating guests and listen to their stories about quality events gone both right and wrong. we dissect the stories to teach and learn from the experiences of our guests. So grab your coffee, secure the lid, ensure it's not too hot and enjoy our episode.
Aaron Harmon:Friend of mine asked me if I knew of a motivational speaker in quality assurance, that question was met with a long pause. Because I didn't know anyone. I went to LinkedIn and posted the same question to regulatory and Quality Network. The response I got far exceeded my expectations. comments came in from a number of amazing people who work in the space of quality and motivation. And Bart Bosch was one of them. After years of industry experience, art started Quontinum, a company to help others protect their brands and improve customer satisfaction to talk motivation and quality. BART has joined me on this episode. Welcome to Inside Out quality, Bart.
Bart Bosch:Well, thank you, Erin, thank you very much for having me.
Aaron Harmon:So right away, I want to ask you, you told me just as we were getting set up that you've gone through a rebranding and a name change?
Bart Bosch:Can you tell me about that? Yeah. So I'll first explain why the name Quontinum comes from. So seven years ago, I started my own coaching consulting business, and I was lying awake, like, well, so what should be the name of my company. And I was thinking about it really, that was actually I think the last time I was laying awake at night, because I have to find the name for my company. And I came up with continuous improvement with the cue from quality. So and that's actually continued concern. So it's continue from continuous and improve improvement. And it started with the cue from quality. So it's continual convexity, from continuous improvement, with a cue from quality. Now, after seven years, and having heard already numerous of time, like bought, your company name is hard to pronounce, it's hard to write. And also, because we were looking at how can we do better in the future? How can we position ourselves in a better way, and make ourselves much better known because you want to help as many copies as possible, we went actually to a marketing agency. And we talked about what our mission and vision was. And they were looking at a new company name. And they came up with the name flip fix, what we stand for, is we help companies to sustainable quality. And we use our experience to increase efficiency, and facilitate continuous improvement. That's where we stand for, and came up with the name of analytics, we do it in a swift way, in a flexible way, and always with the starting point from our customers. So that's actually the base point our customers, what do they ask what's good? That's what we keep? What can we add on? How can we improve things? And it has to be sustainable. So we don't want to stay too long in the company. We just want to do our job very good. And it must be able to to company take it on from there on. So actually, that's that's where we stand for.
Aaron Harmon:I love the term sustainable quality. Think has a lot to unpack in that.
Bart Bosch:Yeah, yeah, it was thinking about our new mission. Because initially said, Yeah, we want to help companies to improve quality, I think it has to be nowadays more than just improve quality, it has to be sustainable as well. Quality is more nowadays than just pure quality. I think we are now in the fourth generation of quality management, where you much more of stakeholder quality management, and where quality is more facilitating quality, instead of being the owner of quality, and must be sustainable, is SB for longer term as well. And it has to be embedded in a company. I think everything we can sustainable is in there, what I think should be in there as an inequality point of view.
Aaron Harmon:We're jumping right into quality, how did you get into the world of quality assurance.
Bart Bosch:I studied biochemistry, I have a bachelor degree in biochemistry, and I very much like the microbiological part. And my first job was actually in a cosmetic company, full time in microbiology. And I learned a lot there but was not really into the small quality control but really quality assurance quality management. Then I moved to a food company making portions of marmalade and jams and sauces as head of the lab, and at a certain moment, that company was thinking like we would like to go for us and 9000 certification. And at that time actually, quote, he was actually writing all the standards and all the procedures and documents was still many years ago. And they wanted someone actually to do all that writing work, that copy work, and that's when they asked me if I would become the assistant Quality Manager. But in that way, actually, I rolled into quality systems and the auditing part, which I liked very much as well. So I really wrote up the whole quality management system at that time, that factory was then bought by Heinz, I mean, really became the Quality Manager of the factory, and responsible for quality control, quality assurance, regulatory part. So the whole bunch, until I said, Well, this company comes too big for one person to manage, I would like to have somebody to for the day to day quality pieces of the site from the factory, and I would like to do the compliance part two, because I really liked the quality management part of it. And then it made me quality systems and audit means behind squid servers in Europe for for factories. So that was unexpected. But I like it very much, because I really could deep dive into quality management systems and quality assurance on how to implement it and all that kind of stuff. moved into vendor auditing, contract manufacturing, auditing, quality improvement. So for companies making art products, but not owned by IES, did that for ATS responsible 26 contract manufacturers in Europe. And then I needed a new challenge. So I left the company, and I moved to the Campbell Soup Company, as European supply Quality Manager. And again, it was like making sure that we had a stable supply base quality wise, within Europe for the fight for for factories, power supplies. So establishing the system on how to select suppliers, how to improve them, how to improve them how to follow up, and if necessary, how to exit the suppliers. So and at the same time, they were doing the same exercise at global level at Campbell. So I was very close contact with them. Until the salt, European business and then I moved to paratus s group quality environmental safety director for the 56 sites in 43 countries worldwide for 7000 people. And there it's more like really the most strategic part of quality, etc. So I think I did, yeah, quite every level within the quality organization you can have. And I think that makes me also very good and very well positioned to help other companies to towards the sustainable quality stuff. But so yeah, so that's bit by creating quality, and we're an hour entity with the quality assurance part of the job.
Aaron Harmon:That's a quite quite a career, a lot of exposure to things and a lot oversee in. So in the world of quality. Sometimes it's hard to excite people about it and the value of it, it's easy to sell like innovation and new technology or improve sales. But when it comes to the word quality, like how did work within your roles, and with your role now, how do you motivate people to embrace quality systems?
Bart Bosch:You know, what it is? Really quality people are very good at what we do in the technical part. But we are not good at is in marketing and selling quality and organization. I did tell you that. When I left my last job, my manager said but you know what your biggest problem was last year? I said no. Well, there were no quality issues. So you did a very good job in preventing things from happening. But that was not really seen within the organization. And I was thinking like, what is Bart doing? And I think that's a bit the problem we have within within quality. We are very good at what we do. But we are not good in showing it within the organization or what we do to prevent things from happening, and what our positive contribution is to the company. I think that's the there's always a tension between the two like that quality minister said, Well, I'll do my best, but I don't feel recognized and quality doesn't seem to be a priority. And on the other hand, you have flex knee like general managers, CEOs, like said, they say, Well, what what's actually quality doing here? But they don't I don't see any contribution from them. Actually, they're more seen as a cost. Yeah. And there's two voices out here constantly, actually. And that's a bit the issue, I guess, where quality is in at the moment.
Aaron Harmon:One of the terms I've heard is cost of compliance, to refer to quality.
Unknown:Yeah, yeah. But then you're not well, I'll tell you a story. So one of my customers, the general manager came to me said but we are growing but we don't feel that our quote system is growing with us. So actually, they're not really contributing to the company. So we need someone to help us upgrading the quality system because our Quality Manager, you got it from school, she doesn't have the experience and need the knowledge to do that. So if we could call a greater as well that would be fine. Yeah, I can do that no problem. And then that's when talking to the quality manager. I said, but do you know that every year I get the question like, What are you doing here? And what's your contribution to the company? So you see these two voices came there as well. And then I asked her, Okay, but what is your financial added value to the business? And that's a question I often asked to people of quality minutes like, well, this will add a financial value to the business. Because as a quality person, you have to understand that you're working in an organization in a company. And the main goal of a company is to make profit, this way your salaries are paid off that way, the investments are paid off, etc. And in my opinion, every part of an organization should contribute to the financial profit of the company also quality. And a lot of quality managers don't think in that way, in a financial way. But it's actually the way on how you can change things. Because if you were seen as a cost, why would they give you priority? Yeah, you only a cost, you don't want to be in a corner where to cut all the costs are. So you have to find a way on how to get out of there. So what we did is, we looked at the mission and vision of the company, then from there on, we looked at the quality policy, because in that way, you really say, Okay, if you can make your quality policy to that vision and mission of your company, you already can show the organization. Well, this is our position, this is our role within the company. And this is how our department our quality is contributing to the vision and the mission of the company. Yeah, so this is what we do to help getting there in the future. So I think that that's already one important part on how to position yourself as quality and make it more important within your organization. Now, from the quality policy, you go actually to your objectives and your KPIs, etc. And then we use the KPIs like complaint rate, right? First time, overdue, improved action rate, and all that kind of stuff, to demonstrate added value to the business. So we said, okay, what are your main drivers for complaints? For instance? Yes, it okay, this, okay, what's your corrective action, you're gonna take her improvement action. Okay, we're gonna do this. You saw over time that she reduced complaints with 60%. of complaint rate. But there's a so far, they only look at the absolute number of complaints, and it was not really decreasing, but sales was going up, said, yeah, you can show this to your general manager, you reduced your complaint rate with 60%. That's your contribution already to the company. Yeah, you have more happy customers. And these happy customers will buy more products. And it will add on to the profit of the company and love. And likewise, it will continue. So in that way, we use actually two quality KPIs to demonstrate how we added value to the business. But I also wanted to go to how can you demonstrate you have added financial value to the business? And that's where we looked at? What are the improvement actions you have to take? What's the cost? And what's the return on investment. On that one, if you can say, well, this as return on investment is improvement action of three years, business wise investment of three years is a no brainer, everybody, everybody will do that. But from that moment on, you won't have that annual ongoing cost any more from that type of performance or complaints. And in that way, you increase the profit of the organization. So if you look at where you position yourself, that you'll get your quality policy, and you can demonstrate the return on investment of your improvement actions. You have these two elements, you can go to senior management, and say, Well, this is our contribution to the company. This is how we operate within the company and this our contribution and our way of working but also financially. And if you speak the language of money, which is in my opinion, the most important language within the business, then they will listen to you. And then you will become a priority again. It was with my first customer, we did this. We keep repeating it at other customers as well. Because it's really a powerful tool. If you really can demonstrate your financial added value to the business. They will listen to you.
Aaron Harmon:Yeah, it's it's definitely a way of identifying what's in it for them and how do you correct and then also, is it a way of instead of putting quality in the corner of cost? Is it a way of putting like complaints in the corner of cost,
Bart Bosch:if that makes sense. Quality is doing better tomorrow than today? Yeah, that that's for me quality. So if you have complaints nonconformances they are actually input for your continuous improve One cycle, yeah, for doing better tomorrow than today. If you can make that happen, and it's not that there's not really see complaint seen as a cost, but as a means for continuous improvement, and if you can then translate it in more efficiency and less costs, and bring financial benefit to the business, I think it is possible to take quality totally out of that corner of being a cost, to be honest. But this how you how you sell it, and how you market within your organization. We always look at quality as something negative. Most of the times like no performances and complaints and people not doing the things you want them to do and audit no performances and things not going well. And I think we have to look at the positive side on what quality can contribute. And then I think it's more easy to get out of that corner of being a cost. That makes sense. So it has
Aaron Harmon:like a, just a side I'm looking at, there's a microphone cord in front of me that hooks up to the mic to recording. And on here it says high quality microphone cable. I looked down at that as you are. What if that said low quality microphone cable? I probably wouldn't use it. Because as a customer, no.
Unknown:You would replace it. It's also marketing your product. Of course,
Aaron Harmon:whoever this company is put on here high quality.
Bart Bosch:Yeah, I don't think any company will say well, we have a low quality cable for you. So it's
Aaron Harmon:so it would be it's stupid. Yeah, it was. Now we'll take a quick break to hear from one of our sponsors.
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Aaron Harmon:We still have tons of problems in the world of quality, though. So I look at the weekly FDA warning letters and I see what's going on out there. i You see things going on in the news. Why are we still having problems? We've got so much advancement in quality science. Do you have any idea what's why companies are still struggling in this space?
Bart Bosch:I think it's like I said, in a lot of companies, growth is still seen in a different way than we would like to have it seen within as a quality department. Like I said, it's often seen as a cost and a necessary evil. And just make sure that you pass all the audits, I think that might be part of the problem. And but it's also about a quality culture, I guess, making people aware what their contribution is to a quality product. People are not always aware of that some a lot of people say I'm just doing the job. No, it's making people aware what the impact is on the quality of the product you're making, and what the effect can be. And I think there's still a lot of job to do. For instance, when I have to audit, for instance, raw material supplier, I always try to bring me a product where their ingredient is used in. Yeah. So I can say, well, what you make is actually part of this product. If something goes wrong with your product, if something goes wrong over here, it will have an impact on this product. And it's making people more aware of the impact they can have actually on quality of a product. Because I think a lot of people are not aware of that.
Aaron Harmon:That's a very good visual way to show that value.
Bart Bosch:Yeah, it's people think, Well, I'm just yet, for instance, people often think, Well, I'm just an operator doing my job. No, you're not just an operator doing your job. You are someone who is actually making an essential part of something bigger. And to that bigger, there's for instance, a brand connected to that one. Yeah, so actually you having direct impact on the value of that brand. If you know that your product that you make is part of a bigger product. Are you happy to tell your family have it consumed or eaten or have it used that will you feel safe with the product you make? Or you say well, well actually I don't care well then you don't care, for instance, about safety of your products. So I think it's making people aware of the impact of and quality of food safety is I think very important. and really make it visual, make it stick, show the where products are used for how it's connected to how many. And if you're making finished product, just show them how many you sell, and how big the sales is, and how many people are consuming it, that they know, okay, if something goes wrong, it's that many people that are impacted. So I think it has to be more meat visual and make it stick and make people aware of their impact on quality and food safety.
Aaron Harmon:Visual is so powerful, but one thing that I've learned is if I try to communicate a message, and I use PowerPoint, or, you know, sit there and verbally describe it, I've gone to the lengths of like, showing that this process can be improved at this rate with this kind of cost reduction. And I still couldn't win people over with my PowerPoints. When I sent people to a facility that was doing the same process, which followed my vision, that was enough to solve them. Because they were able to see it themselves, instead of just looking at my slides and be like, okay, you know, in this table, you're saying this, but what's it really looked like?
Unknown:Yeah, well, it's it's make it visual and visualize to people that they better understand what it's all about what the impact is. It's not easy to do. Yeah, but just give it to them and said, Do you like this product? Yeah, okay, well, your product that you make is part of this. Yeah, of of the product you like, you're part of this you are to what you're doing has a direct impact on the quality of this product that you like, or your sister or your kids or your children, or your mom and dad. So your friends, you know, it's it's make it personal, make it stick for these people. And I think they will get more engaged in the quality part of their job. And in my opinion, if if every role within a company does a quote, this job, or the quality of this product in the end as well. But then everybody has to do a qualitative job, and has to be aware how they can do it in a qualitative way and be engaged to it and be committed to it to make a good product.
Aaron Harmon:So do you see the role of someone who is leading a quality management system, partly as a role of motivation,
Bart Bosch:motivation, and helping people to do a good quality job? It's what I said in the beginning as well. It's quality is not here to old quality, it's there to facilitate quality. Everybody has to do a quality job. And I think it's the role of somebody who leads the quality department to to help people do a good quality job. Yeah. I can tell you like, when I had to revert or quality system at my first company, I went through the process owners said, Okay, can you put in a flowchart what you're doing here? And if you cannot do that, think again, what you're doing here? Yeah. Then they looked very confused to me. said, Yeah, but I mean, if you cannot put in a flowchart, what you're doing here, you have to think again, what I'm doing here, because I'm just asking you put in a flowchart, every step of the process, you do because you have a process, but you're doing it, it's in a charge and purchasing. It's in engineering, quality, name it, they really wrote the process charts and flowcharts. And then I said, Okay, now you have to think on how you're going to measure if your process is working? Well, yes or no? So actually, what I was asking them is actually, can you come up with a performance indicator of your process? To see if it works, yes or no. And in that way, they became totally owner of their own procedure, because that flowchart was actually the procedure, that what they did in the department, and they could measure it. So now you know that if it's working well, yes or no, and it's not going in the right direction, you can look in your flowchart and see which process that is not working well. And you can work on that if you can improve that step to make sure that your performance indicators going back in right direction, again, to the approach is going well again. And in that way, they became total owner of their own procedures. So that's what we did over there. Yeah, I like that.
Aaron Harmon:Maybe a different way of looking at that I had a VP of a research organization, how these breakout meetings with our scientists. And in one of those sessions, he asked us, How do you make money for the company? And an r&d organization? I had always viewed this r&d was a spent, like, we spent money you put money into us and we would give you products eventually. But what I had to like boil it down to on a daily activity, how do I generate money for the company and r&d group? It reshaped how I thought so I then thought, Okay, I conducted these studies in the lab, they have to be conducted if they were conducted elsewhere, it would cost this much. So if I cut my operating costs on this study, if I can do it without having to repeat it as much, if I can do more studies a year, then I'm driving value inside the organization. And that gave me an easier way to communicate why I should stay employed and why I added value and why our r&d group was important. Yeah. Yeah, same thing and quality. It's what you're saying?
Unknown:Well, when I asked her my first customers well to the quality minutes, what's your edit financial value to the business? She can look like. But I make sure that the quality that leaves the factory are good. And we don't receive complaints. Yeah. And in that way, actually, if you don't have to manage complaints, that's not a cost for the company. Set. Yeah. But execute. That's what you paid for already. Yeah. You're still a cost. You're not any financial value to the business, you're still seen as a cost by just doing your job? Yeah, yeah. So I triggered okay, how can you add financial value to the business and not say, Well, I make sure we use complaints? Because that's your job. That's what you paid for anyway, you're not adding financial value? Yeah, I think you have to go one step further. To do that. And I think, with what I did, actually, with having the process of underwrite their own processes is, okay, how can we make the process more efficient? Yeah. So if you do internal audits, and you go to that process chart and say, Okay, why do you do this step? Because I always did it that way. Well, but what's the added value of that step? Actually, there is no, skip it. Yeah. And your process will be more efficient. And in that way, you can say, well, you to our quality tools and techniques like internal audit, we made processes, or also administered processes more efficient. And we can do more of them in a shorter time. And that's how we can add financial value to the business. So it's using your quality tools and techniques in a different way in a different mindset, and transfer what you do and what's the Edit financial value to the business? And like I said, it's preventing complaints from happening. Well, that's what you're paid for already. Yeah, that's not adding financial value. Yes, to go one step further. And I think different way of thinking, towards creating value, and also financial value.
Aaron Harmon:It's very much a shift of thought pattern. Yeah, just one that I myself, I'm not very good at, like just what you're describing, I see myself as struggling the same same way as the cell quality, and the show the the added value of it. So your company now is this, one of the services you provide is to help go in and creating sustainable quality, but then also showing that added value.
Bart Bosch:Yeah, we have three pillars within the company. One is actually the one on one coaching, consulting with companies. And then we really can work on that sustainable quality system. One on one with companies. Yeah, it's like, but we want to have more structure in our company, you would like to go for as in 1001 structure, not really for certification, but really for the structure. Can you help? Yeah, we can help you with that. No problem. But you're looking at supply quality management, can you help us for that part? Yeah, we can help you with that on one on one. Yeah. And then Chris is supposed to Blackboard message, just make sure you have a good supply base, that's actually preventing issues from happening in your company, because he was not good Polish coming in, it's impossible to make good product coming out. So it makes quality also more sustainable in that way. So that's one part is actually a one on one coaching we do. The second part is pro have put customers supplier audits, just to make sure they have a reliable supply base. And we can use that as audit standard and the audit tools, no problem. But we make sure that we have that independent audit going on at their supply just to make sure they have sustainable supply base. And the third pillar is something that we recently started is an online coaching program that really goes through what we just discussed, it's it starts with the mission and the vision of the company, and how you can make your quality policy out of it, how you can translate it in the real true quality KPIs, and how you can demonstrate your edit financial value to the business. And that's an online coaching program, you have to do some own work. So you have to send in things to us, we can give you feedback, because we really want you to succeed in providing that information that you add financial value to the business. So that's a coaching program online that we recently created.
Aaron Harmon:Awesome. So if someone is listening to this, they want to get a hold of you and go through the coaching program or connect up for supplier audits or do the one on one coaching,
Unknown:how do they reach out to you, they can easily send me an email but at Fleet x.com I'll pick up the email, I think that's the most easiest way to go forward. We have customers all over the world with different time zones that might be difficult. So just send me an email but@citrix.com And I'll get in contact with you just to see how we can move forward.
Aaron Harmon:Awesome and I will include that in the show notes to make it easy for people to navigate to so that they can click on your email address. and how that right there? Yeah,
Unknown:top. Thank you.
Aaron Harmon:Well, thank you, Bert. This was great. I learned a lot and I think our listeners will too.
Unknown:Good Hope too, because yeah, it's my thing is like, I'll share my knowledge and experience to help other companies improve quality. And I think this is an excellent way of doing this. So thank you very much for giving me this opportunity.
Aaron Harmon:I appreciate having you on here was great.
Leslie Cooper:This episode of Inside Out quality was brought to you thanks to South Dakota biotech Association. If you have a story you'd like us to explore and share. We'd love to hear from you. Submit your ideas by visiting www.sd bio.org
Aaron Harmon:You've made it this far in the episode. Thanks for listening