The third absolute of quality provided by Philip Crosby is that The Performance Standard is Zero Defect. 2
And his point was the zero defect is not a motivational program, it is a management standard which tells 3
people that what management is expecting people from so the management is expecting zero defects. 4
And for that management is responsible for looking at the processes, supporting processes, providing all 5
the support people need that. This might slightly contradict with the teachings of Dr. Deming. 6
Dr Deming was not in favor of these approaches of zero defects putting a target but the philosophy is 7
different. 8
The thinking is different. 9
Here Dr. Crosby is looking for a zero defect as a program, as a management expectations and management working 10
towards providing all the facilities, all the support, all the processes to achieve that rather than just 11
plainly telling, putting a big poster that we are looking for zero defect. 12
No, Crosby is not in favor of that. 13
Crosby is in favor of having zero defect as the standard. 14
That's what management should be expecting. 15
And then management should be working to put all the systems and processes in place, all the resources 16
which are required to achieve this standard which is a zero defect. Mistakes in any processes are caused 17
by two main factors. 18
One is the lack of knowledge. 19
And second is lack of attention. 20
So we need to tackle both of these if a problem is happening because of lack of knowledge then it's 21
very simple. 22
You need to provide that knowledge. 23
You need to provide the processes, training, all the support which worker needs because if there's a lack 24
of knowledge there will be a problem. 25
So you need to overcome that. 26
So this is one cause of making mistake which is a lack of knowledge. 27
The second cause of mistake is the lack of attention that's where workers or the people who are working 28
on the job need to work on. 29
It's an attitude problem. 30
So you need to understand that when you have a problem you need to understand what's the cause of that 31
problem. 32
Is it because of lack of knowledge, lack of resources, lack of attention, you find are the root cause of 33
that. 34
Work on that and look toward the zero defect as a basic standard of achieving quality. 35
So this was the third absolute of quality which is that The Performance Standard is Zero Defect, management 36
need to focus on having zero defect. 37
You really cannot have a target of 1 percent repair. 38
You really don't mean to have one percent product being made wrong. 39
The standard should always be zero defect. 40
So this is the third absolute of quality provided by Philip Crosby.