Policy aims to standardise quality

Date: 14/03/1996

By Tim Jones

OFFICIALS from the European Commission are working flat out to sketch the outlines of an EU policy on product and service quality in time for the next meeting of industry ministers in May.

More than two years after the Commission's White Paper on Growth, Competitiveness and Employment called for the establishment of an EU policy on quality, officials hope ministers will be able to give their approval to a detailed plan on 18 May.

The communication on how to give a European impetus to quality management techniques and policies was meant to be completed in March, but is now being rewritten by DGIII, the Directorate-General for industry.

“The problem has been to strike a balance between showing that we at the European level can bring an added value to the issue of quality management, while also honouring the principle of subsidiarity and not doing what industry itself can do,” said an official.

In his analysis of why the European economy has been less efficient at creating jobs than the United States and Japan, former Commission President Jacques Delors concluded that EU industry needed to focus on high-quality and high-tech products and services.

The Commission feels that in creating the single market, the EU concentrated on standardisation and this should now be complemented by a European policy on quality.

“It is a part of an awareness policy on behalf of the Commission to give greater visibility to overall quality management to achieve higher competitiveness,” said an official.

“It is also part of the progression in policy in moving issues as far as possible away from legislation and into the hands of industry,” he added. “It is up to economic operators to have the right strategies. In a way, it is a deregulation policy.”

This will build on what has been a natural progression among large industries since the Eighties, when the question of product and service quality was put firmly on the agenda, particularly in the car industry, telecommunications sector and some branded goods industries.

For years, companies have been setting product and service standards, including advice on product operation or initial installation, skill in handling customer complaints and environmental issues.

For example, many retailers have established procedures to ensure that their suppliers know their detailed delivery requirements and their stock control needs for items such as perishable or damaged goods.

It has become accepted practice for telecommunications operators to set day or hour targets for connections, and even agree to recompense customers if they are not met.

Many have found that customers are willing to pay extra for better quality service.

A large number of companies have moved away from simple quality control departments and specialists, and have established schemes to make sure that every employee takes responsibility for achieving higher standards.

The Commission paper will encourage member states to try and harmonise their quality bench-marks. It praises the European Quality Awards, set up four years ago by the European Foundation for Quality Management, an association of 14 major firms including Fiat and Renault.

These firms had come to realise the need, also laid out in the 1993 White Paper, to pass on the latest techniques and specifications to their smaller suppliers and sub-contractors.

“In many ways, the big boys don't need to worry,” said the official. “We want to help SMEs get access to these quality management tools, and realise they are a goal for them and not just for the big companies.”

The European Quality Awards were created to emulate the success of equivalent award schemes in the US and Japan, using the same criteria but also giving a heavy weight to the impact of the techniques on a company's results.

Nevertheless, the Commission is keen to warn against a simple and single-minded pursuit of awards.

“A lot of people have been going for certificates rather than the quality needed to obtain the certificate,” warned the official.

The Commission's aim is to group all the initiatives of the member states and industry itself under a European umbrella and ensure that the same kinds of quality standards are sought in every EU country.

DGIII is in the driving seat in formulating the policy, but it has also involved services specialising in telecoms and consumer affairs, and SMEs. Even the fisheries unit in DGVI has a quality arm.

At the moment, all the research and preparatory work carried out by the Commission services has been distilled into a 60-page working document, but this still has to be turned into something more palatable for ministers.

“In the spirit of the work we are doing, it would be better to come forward with a good quality paper than simply to meet the deadline,” said an official.