Webstercare Quality Culture Handbook

An introduction to Quality
Webstercare Quality Culture Handbook
An introduction to Quality

Quality Culture
Handbook
Upholding the ISO 9001:2015 Quality system in a daily approach
Webstercare Quality Culture Handbook
An introduction to Quality

“A business will pay for Quality, whether you embrace the process
approach or not.

You can pay for the training and maintenance of Standards

or

you will pay for the losses through mistakes and inconsistency.”

Webstercare Quality team

as at 2019
Director of Quality: Ian Stevens
Christine Veal
Craig Brankstone
Marion Benatiro
Rachael McCallum
Karen Chung

The intentions of this document is to establish expectations which allow our organization (Webstercare)
to, in every department from every level; provide guidelines that support behavior that create the
foundation for a true culture of ongoing improvement.
This is the first of its kind. 2019
Webstercare Quality Culture Handbook
An introduction to Quality

Table of Contents
What’s in it for me?..................................................................................................................................................4
How do we do this?..................................................................................................................................................5
What is ISO 9001?....................................................................................................................................................6
Continuous Improvement?.......................................................................................................................................7
The Process Approach..............................................................................................................................................7
Organize and Prioritise Processes.........................................................................................................................8
“What-if” Based thinking....................................................................................................................................10
Risk, Opportunities, Benefits: The ROB System.................................................................................................11
Auditing.................................................................................................................................................................. 12
The Quality Team...............................................................................................................................................12
External Audit.....................................................................................................................................................12
Non-Conformist..................................................................................................................................................13
What is Anti-Fragile?..........................................................................................................................................14
Doing Things Right vs Doing the Right Thing..........................................................................................................15
Webstercare Quality Culture Handbook
An introduction to Quality

What is “Quality Culture”

The word “Quality” has many connotations, generally which resemble the “goodness”,
robustness or simplicity of something.
In our context of Webstercare, the “Quality” is found when our actions as Webstercare
staff are most aligned with our customer needs first; i.e “Peace of mind with medication”,
and secondly our Business goals; forefront of medication management technology. The
ISO 9001:2015 framework supports our goals by clarifying and standardizing the paths
that allow for our continuous improvement towards our goals.
Webstercare and each of our staff choose to uphold the standards of the ISO 9001:2015
in order to demonstrate our active pursuit of good, quality and continuous improvement
in our daily practice.
Webstercare Quality Culture Handbook
An introduction to Quality

What’s in it for me?

As staff of Webstercare, you have been selected to support our customers and business
goals as it forms part of your own career.
Choosing to embrace our Quality Culture is a step in the direction to continue a healthy
workplace that constantly strives to be better, rather than demanding you to do what you
are told and ignoring your internal feedback.

With your help we can become;

 More efficient day to day processes which means less stress daily

 See more risks and prepare for them

 Enjoy good customer relationships

 Feel confident what we do is making a difference

If you already participate in some of the Quality culture techniques listed in these pages,
we thank you!
The ripples of those efforts will be able to improve not just your role, but how your role
overlaps with colleagues, and eventually the positive ripples reach the customer – who is
ultimately who we are here to serve.
Webstercare Quality Culture Handbook
An introduction to Quality

How do we do this?
In order to sow the seeds for a Quality Culture, we need 5 ingredients for success.

1; Acknowledge that “we are all in this together”; as in

our company, customers, suppliers are all humans
that will benefit from smarter medication
administration at some time.

2: Open and honest communication is key; to encourage

honesty in the workplace, there needs to be a safe
space made for listening to one another where
trusted information is not misused.

3: Information is accessible; Details about products,

processes, documents and even written
communications are best practice to be kept with
version numbers with clear titles, archived and
trackable. This helps ensure we can find and build on
our existing knowledgebase and work to improve.

4: Pay attention to processes; to reasonably explore

improvement, attention must move away from
blaming a person and onto the process that they work
within and “how can we make it better?”.

5: There is no such thing as a mistake, just learning

opportunities; this attitude is key to swift and
considered improvement, without the burden of
blame.
Webstercare Quality Culture Handbook
An introduction to Quality

What is ISO 9001?

The ISO 9001:2015, also known as the “ISO Standard”, is defined as the International
Standard that specifies requirements for a Quality Management System (QMS). The
initial document was written back in 1987 by the International Organization for
Standardisation (ISO) and clearly stated the structure and benefits of identifying and
reviewing Business management systems on a cyclical manner… and has been improving
ever since.

The Standard is an authoritative guide to help every aspect of a business from training
staff to logistics using these 3 key principles;
> Organize and prioritize processes
> Formalizes critical observation in order to explore and develop improvements
> Emphasizes the need for continual review and improvement

The Quality Culture of Webstercare is one that takes these key principles and applies
them to our daily operations, in every department, at any time.
Webstercare Quality Culture Handbook
An introduction to Quality

Continuous Improvement?
In this document we say “continuous improvement” frequently.
It is a simple, yet specific expression that reflects a commitment to an ongoing review of
processes and procedures of which can be applied across a business. It becomes a way of
thinking, or more accurately to the ISO Standards phrasing, part of the Process
Approach1.

The Process Approach

The Process Approach involves the systematic identification, definition and management
of processes and their interrelating procedures; all as part of a Quality Management
System.
Some who have studied ISO 9001 know a technique for the process approach as; Plan - Act – Check – Do

But we have altered it slightly for our own purposes;

Plan
Act
Check
Evaluate

Bestest

Best

Better

Good

1
The Process Approach features in the ISO 9001:2016 as a management method of systematic definition and management
of processes, process interactions and their results.
Webstercare Quality Culture Handbook
An introduction to Quality

How can I apply Quality Culture at

Webstercare?
There are many techniques we can use to apply Quality Culture, found in these pages,
yet what is more important to Webstercare’s success is that each staff member
understands just how important their daily contribution is, as it overlaps across
departments and over time.

Organize and Prioritise Processes

A Process is a set path of actions and inputs that collect to

create an output or result.
Processes are everywhere and can easily become habits, tricks someone has picked up
through experience or general guidelines with a lot left to “winging it”.
The ISO 9001 puts forth the notion that ALL procedures are worth identifying and
clarifying; but are important to regularly review as product knowledge grows, technology
changes and staff training adapts.
A helpful guide to know what needs to be noted down clearly is that if a new person asks
how to do it, it’s probably worth having a written reference so that in the case you are not
available to answer – the information can be found another way.
Yet, once one procedure is written down, it is essential that all related procedures and
variables are identified in incorporated so as to ensure that all the “inputs” of the
procedure will produce the same “output”. Often, the output of one person’s procedure
will affect the manner in which the result is received by the next persons’ procedures.
Webstercare Quality Culture Handbook
An introduction to Quality

Example; A software company receives a customer call

Customer Service Software Services Software Development

Recieve inbound calls, linking notes to Recieve software related calls Might want to adjust Software if there
account details Document details of call in account are many recorded problems
Triage clients to relevant departments details Create updates or new software

In the example above, if each stage didn’t:

Have a clear procedure which staff would easily follow that

ensured detailed information was trackable from start to finish

It would be much more difficult to improve the software and essentially reduce calls and
have happier customers.

Within the Quality

This basic example is not so much about what each Manual is a
department does, but in terms of ISO 9001, it is the description of all the
different forms of
importance of what is documented; which is represented
documentation that
where the arrow symbol sits; in between. are appropriate for
If you see opportunities for documented messages to be Webstercare’s
Quality Management
clarified, for example a Customer asking a question about
System.
phrasing in a manual, record it as a ROB as it’s adoption
could have great clarifying benefits immediately, and into the
future.
Webstercare Quality Culture Handbook
An introduction to Quality

“What-if” Based thinking

Incorporated throughout ISO 9001:2015 there is the
If you find someone is
recent inclusion of “Risk-Based Thinking”, which is a
uncomfortable voicing their
technique that encourages companies to evaluate
opinion, try establishing a Safe
future risks and opportunities when establishing
Space (which means
processes, controls and improvements in a Quality information is private and
Management System. ideas are not associated with
an author) to encourage a fair
and open discussion.
At Webstercare, Risk Based Thinking often appears in
conversation more as an open expression of “What-If”,
yet still exploring the same ideas of potential risk
whilst easily allowing for discussion of opportunities,
and contributing lessons learnt in the past.
Whenever you find yourself thinking around;
 Organizational Context: risks to the company objective as a whole within their industry
 Leadership; Management commit to addressing risks and opportunities
 Planning; brainstorming to create plans to address risk and opportunities
 Operation; control the actions in planning steps
 Performance: track and analyze the risks and opportunities identified
 Improvement: lessons from experience and making improvements based on those risks

You are always encouraged

to contribute a “What if…”
to help explore risks and
opportunities, even if you
are new to the company…
Webstercare Quality Culture Handbook
An introduction to Quality

Risk, Opportunities, Benefits: The ROB System

Within Webstercare, one of our paths to continuous improvement

begins with staff logging a ROB, Risk Opportunity or Benefit,
which captures a suggestion or reports an issue or idea.
Those Risks Opportunities and Benefits are synthesized into a
system that allows equal treatment and review to make sure
nothing gets missed through bias or time constraints.
The ROB’s are reviewed weekly, escalated to management and if
they are able to be worked on immediately, they continue to
develop, and if they can’t be actioned immediately, they become
helpful data indicating trends which is helpful for
predictive analytics and business decisions.

An idea, issue
or opportunity
comes up

the actions can

be agreed upon
Its logged as a
and deployed in
ROB report
the company; a
New Standard

ROBs in
Webstercare
ROB's are
The action reviewed weekly
forward is by a committee
offered to weekly, assigning
upper them to
management department
as a proposal Department Management
Management
review the robs
and work to offer
a direction
forward
Webstercare Quality Culture Handbook
An introduction to Quality

Auditing
Another path for continuous improvement is Auditing.
This is a formalized review of processes which can be conducted by:

Internally OR Externally
Conducted by your in- Conducted by an Auditing
house Quality Team Representative of ISO
9001 Standards

The Quality Team

The Quality Team are trained in auditing and will periodically visit different departments
according to their Auditing Schedule.
The Quality team do this to actively seek opportunities for improvement without the risk
of the External Audit or affecting Webstercare’s accreditation.
These Audits are a series of questions around a collection of processes, and the auditor
will only be able to ask questions and record the answers provided.
The answers will become data that indicate what is happening and can be compared to
what we say we are doing. This way, the areas that don’t conform might reveal a faster,
different or better way to do something that we want to be doing.

External Audit
An External auditor will conduct their audit and pass on a report at the end, detailing non-
conformities both minor or major, with a determination of ISO 9001:2015 Accreditation.
The External Audit will happen periodically, in our case, every year.
Webstercare Quality Culture Handbook
An introduction to Quality

“ A  NON-COMPLIANCE  IS THE FAILURE TO ADHERE TO AN ACT OR ITS REGULATIONS

A  NON-CONFORMANCE  IS THE FAILURE TO COMPLY WITH A REQUIREMENT, STANDARD, OR
PROCEDURE AND CAN BE CATEGORIZED AS MAJOR OR MINOR.

A NON-CONFORMANCE REPORT (NCR) IS ISSUED IN A QUALITY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM AUDIT, WHEN

THE AUDITEE FAILS TO MEET A REQUIREMENT IN THE QMS.”

Non-Conformist
Audits can seem scary, as the language of “failure” implies a single defeat rather than the
truth of an ongoing constructive criticism process. This perception, when combined with
ego or legacy issues hinder the open attitude of transparency which means problems can
go unacknowledged or worse, are glossed over.

“It is essential to identify the gaps in order for us to step through them.”
~ Anon.

However, the goal of the Quality

Management System is to make
improvements in the system processes
and so any non-conformity should be
viewed as a way to identify these
needed improvements. Any failures
identified can be improved upon, in
fact it is key to being successful.
In some circles, this is called
AntiFragile.
Webstercare Quality Culture Handbook
An introduction to Quality

What is Anti-Fragile?

Anti Fragile is a term coined by Nicholas Taleb, a contemporary philosopher whose

influence is seen most in business and economics.
Taleb explores the idea that “fragile” describes something that is easily broken and losing
its inherent value, but when considering what is Anti-fragilei; it is the OPPOSITE; When
broken, something becomes stronger and better through evolution. When applied to
business this term is most relevant in testing stages of products but can also apply
conceptually through “What if” thinking in risk analysis and general strategies of
business.
Taleb explains that nearly any fragile “thing” (in our case, procedure) can be detected,
measured and transformed to become better than before, to become anti-fragile.

For Webstercare to adopt the idea;

 an Audit would be the “detection” process,
 the ROBs would be our “measuring” process and
 the “transformation” process is the evaluation stage.

Fragile Robust Anti-Fragile

Webstercare Quality Culture Handbook
An introduction to Quality

Doing Things Right vs Doing the Right Thing

Sometimes following procedures is not the best path of action to
meet our goals of serving our customers best. Sometimes, in
Doing things right - for
extreme cases, we will need to identify a path that serves our example, following the
customers in a tailored solution. procedure correctly.
Doing the right thing - for
This can happen when a product or service we offer malfunctions example, doing things
differently to the procedure
at the customers loss, or circumstances out of our control cause to offer exceptional
customers to lose faith in our service ability. Often, the situation is customer care.
obviously not fitting into standard procedure and in these cases,
are best brought to the attention of management for a special
resolution.

Once that special resolution is established, keep track of it and it can become a precedent later if
the situation were to ever reoccur, one day becoming its own procedure variation if necessary.
i
Written by Rachael McCallum
18/3/2019
For Webstercare Quality Team