6 Sigma Categories
Business & Career Improvement
Change Management and Quality Control
Change management is a process in quality control that keeps track of all changes made throughout the duration of a project. This means that if an employee finds a defect in a product, and changes are made to repair it, then these changes must be documented. The change could cause issues with other requirements being met further down the line of production. Keeping track of changes that occur should always be documented. Change management documentation should be labeled according to the phase of the project, name of the change, etc. The information included in a change management document should record the exact steps taken to make the change, and should be as succinct and detailed as possible.
Change management needs to occur because changes often impact many people in a big way. For example, when several departments are building a product and each department is in charge of working on a piece of the project that will ultimately fit together like a puzzle. If even one minor change is made, the pieces may no longer fit together properly. One change can affect the entire project. If there is not communication about changes made then the entire quality control process experiences difficulties which can lead to a disaster.
You must meet customer requirements when you are developing a product for customers. Small changes can also impact these requirements. If a website that you are building doesn’t work on a Mac platform but it works on a PC, a change will be required. If the developer goes ahead and recodes the website without documenting it, even more problems could arise. What if once the developer makes the site work on a Mac it no longer works with a specific browser? He may have forgotten the exact changes he made, and it could take hours to figure out how to fix this new issue. Change must be controlled in a quality control environment if your company’s goal is total quality.
Quality control requires organization of processes. A very part of this process that should be in place is change management. It is important to keep track of changes in an organized fashion so they are easy to go back to and review. Changes can make a big impact on the end result of a product or service.