Building a Culture of Quality

Manufacturing teams come in different cultural flavors:

• Execution-oriented where the timeline is king
• Cost-oriented where cheap (efficient?) is the name of the game
• Quality-oriented where getting it "right" matters most

In reality, most teams are a mix of these -- but there are some outliers where the cultural emphasis comes through.

I've had the distinct pleasure of getting to know some quality-oriented teams in my career. They operate differently. They believe that the thing that matters most is delivering a solid and reliable customer experience -- and that if they wow their customers, they will earn their patronage forever. They can often demand a premium because of the brand value they spent decades investing in. I've noticed they tend to be privately owned, with founders who worked in the business for decades (or still do), and that the engineering and operations teams at these companies are some of the nicest I've personally met. The founder's principles are often invoked in meetings or in the hallway -- they line up old products in small museums in their office lobbies or hallways and speak reverently about them.

While it may not be possible to build in exactly the same way as Bose, Lutron, or others, I think there's a lot to learn from companies that have made the strategic decision that the best outcomes come from an extreme focus on quality. This section will highlight learnings from leaders and teams taking quality-first stance.