We recently attended the 2015 QuEST Forum Leadership Summit and Work Group meetings in late January. In addition to all of the awards and networking, critical new initiatives are always announced, the previous year is reviewed and new and incoming Board members are trained.
We’re very involved in several of the organization’s initiatives such as Small Business, Board member training, Jump Start and GBE (Global Business Excellence). BIZPHYX Senior Consultant and QuEST Forum Fellow, Irv Briks recently delivered an excellent educational webinar entitled “The Cost of Poor Quality and Its Impact On Profitability”. This training was offered as part of the QuEST Forum Small Business Lecture Series and Small Business Initiative and the video is now featured on our blog and social sites. Click here to see photos from this year’s Leadership Summit on our Flickr and Facebook pages. We were very honored to once again receive the 340 Club Award.
There’s a great deal to report, including the various initiatives planned for 2015. If you are QuEST Forum member organization, we encourage you to read the entire 2015 Insights and Intents document. It is posted on our Knowledge Center. It’s a detailed road map for 2015 QuEST Forum organizational goals and initiatives. From our perspective, here are some important summary points:
QuEST Forum Memberships: Small Business Leads!
While there are still challenges in attracting large, global service providers as active members, membership overall is up and that is due in great part to the Small Business Group and Small Business memberships. We may be a bit partial to the tireless efforts of our CEO, Sue Clancy as Chair of this group! Also, many BIZPHYX clients and Small Business members swept the Pyramid Awards at the America’s Best Practices Conference in September 2014 (a link to our press release) Congratulations to everyone who participates in these efforts and congratulations to our Small Business member companies who sponsor events and work tirelessly for ICT quality through TL 9000 certification. While no mention is made of Small Business initiatives in the Intents and Insights document, you will find a link to Small Business on the updated QuEST Forum website.
TL 9000: THE ICT Quality Standard
There are still challenges at the MSP level for increased adoption of the standard, but the reality is—TL 9000 matters and certification speaks to the heart of ICT quality management. Certifications via JDSU outlets here and abroad drove the totals and globally there were more certifications abroad than in the USA. However, we’re very busy and as one of the nation’s leading TL 9000 consulting firms, we continue to see small to mid-size organizations embrace the value of the standard. Certainly, the ISO 9001:2015 revision will have an impact on the new version of TL 9000 (R6.0) and the IGQ Work Group is on top of this effort after mapping the DIS and FDIS in 2014.
Sustainability, Sustainability, Sustainability:
As you many be aware, the QuEST Forum Sustainability Initiative was launched in 2014 following the elevation of Sustainability to the Executive Board Level in 2013. Under the guidance of QuEST Forum Chair Steve Pickett and QuEST Forum CEO, Fraser Pajak, a pilot group of nine companies began submitting data into the QuEST Forum system in May of 2014.
Whether organizations embrace sustainability full force by implementing ISO 14001 or incorporate sustainability aspects into their existing TL 9000 and ISO 9001 quality systems, QuEST Forum has done a great job through the IGQ Work Group in elevating sustainability to a strategic level, developing a model with 10 sustainability measurements.
Don’t expect this focus to fade in organizations, it’s here to stay. Sustainability, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Environmental Management (impacts, outcomes and improvements) are front and center for the C-suite. They are not “buzz” words anymore, for those who may have considered them as such.
Awareness and Value Of ICT Supply Chain Quality
In 2014, you couldn’t help but notice the increase in presentations and participation on panels at important allied organization events like TIA, the NTCA (now the Rural Broadband Association), OSP and NATE. Even our own CEO Sue Clancy and QuEST Forum CEO Fraser Pajak spoke to TIG (The Technology Industry Group) in Chicago in 2014. Awareness of ICT quality through QuEST Forum is increasing with these efforts, new global partnerships and through social media channels. The two new initiatives of Sustainability and Tower Quality and Reliability (2014) have also shined a spotlight on the relevance of QuEST Forum with regard to ICT supply chain quality.
The Focus For 2015: Important Initiatives
If you review the new QuEST Forum website, you’ll see all of the 2015 initiatives clearly presented:
• Cell Tower Quality and Reliability
• Cost of Poor Quality
• Marketing Outreach
• Network Function Virtualization
• Network and Service Reliability Measurements
• Product Development
• QuEST Forum Academy
• Small Business
• Sustainability
• Wireless Handsets
Two new initiatives that we feel need to be highlighted are the Cost of Poor Quality (CoPQ) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV).
NEW: Cost of Poor Quality (CoPQ):
The goal of this new initiative is to create a clear, aligned definition and normalized reporting for an agreed set of CoPQ elements. Members are being solicited for participation in a benchmarking exercise of agreed upon KPI’s affecting CoPQ. Deepti Arora of Nokia is leading this effort.
BIZPHYX Senior Consultant and QuEST Forum Fellow, Irv Briks recently delivered a CoPQ webinar as part of the QuEST Forum Small Business Lecture Series and Small Business Initiative.
NEW: Network Function Virtualization (NFV):
Critical to the rapid increase in technology on networks, this initiative will clarify and prioritize the industry’s current NFV quality and performance reliability issues and will be led by a team of companies whose products and services are used in the development, deployment and use of NFV.
Both are critical to the ICT industry and we’ll keep our readers up to date on relevant outcomes with these initiatives.
The long and short—between this activity, the work of the regional hubs (Americas, APAC and EMEA) and the impending ISO 9001:2015 revision coming at the end of the year, there will be no rest for any of us.
2015 is really going to be “The Year Of Quality”. Stay tuned and get involved!
For more information on ICT quality, TL 9000 certification, QuEST Forum and the value of QuEST Forum membership, please contact info@bizphyx.com
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