4 Key Insights on Revolutionizing Quality from Jabil's VP

To be a world class quality organization there are many things that an organization needs to do right. Companies need to have the right set of streamlined process supported with the systems and technology. However, the most critical attribute for a world class organization is always its people and the culture of the organization.

At LNS Research, our team has always tried to push the envelope in educating organizations on Operational Excellence, and Quality is a key part of it, whether it's research data from thousands of global organizations, bringing you success stories from different corners of the world or analysis of our analyst team.

I recently had a chance to speak to Clint Belinsky, Vice President of Global Quality at Jabil, about how his organization is revolutionizing quality in manufacturing. He spoke at the World ASQ Conference last month and we also read this interesting article of how Jabil is revolutionizing manufacturing operations in IndustryWeek which will also provide some worthwhile insights to our readers.

Below I've highlighted four important quotes from my executive interview with Clint on many different topics we had discussed. Each gives a window into the Jabil philosophy when it comes to technology, quality's role within the organization, culture, and more. As a very brief background for those who may not be familiar, Jabil is a huge global manufacturing services organization with 90 facilities in 24 countries, and more than 180,000 employees.

Role of a Quality Leader

We often think about quality as an internal function but one of the traits I have seen with successful quality leadership is it alwayss considers how quality is going to impact customers. The quote below embodies that as a key focus for Jabil and Clint as a leader for the Quality organization at Jabil:

“I have the responsibility of truly demonstrating quality excellence for our customers. At the end of the day, we want to take great care of our customers, so that they can leap frog from where they are today and achieve transformational results for their organization."

Quality Management System

This is a good quote for quality executives that are looking to streamline their quality management systems. Sometimes we make it more complex than it needs to be. In this quote below, Clint talks about how to start with standardizing and driving consistencies in your quality management systems:

"When it comes to quality management, it is very critical to develop a core. Start with the basic processes such as CAPA, metrics, document management etc. Make sure you have developed processes and systems that work really well for your core quality systems. Once you have the core, it is easy to build upon."

Developing the Right Quality Culture

As highlighted above, people are always one of the most critical success factors behind any quality organization. We've often talked about how forward thinking organizations have changed the image of a quality group away from something akin to a "policing function" and the quote below provides one example of how Clint has built that culture at Jabil:

"Generally people don’t like audits but not at Jabil. At Jabil, audits are very upbeat and not done with a “got you” attitude."

Technology Infrastructure

Siloed and disconnected data from different sources often creates a roadblock for any quality organization. Just imagine managing a tiered supplier base with a manual process. The quote below talks about how Jabil has developed its IT infrastructure to support its vision of demonstrating quality excellence for its customers:

“We have also automated our processes by building a common platform for our IT that is consistent across our organization. We have a global instance of ERP, an integrated Manufacturing Execution System (MES) and a quality management solution."

You can read the complete interview by clicking the link below. Our next Executive Council Meeting on July 7 at 1:00 pm EDT will also touch upon these topics with success stories from Global VP of Supply Chain and Quality at Bostik and Director of Global Quality at Ecolab sharing their experiences on these topics.